Spy Kids: Menticide
by YeredYohanan
Summary: During a mission one of the agents of the recently reinstated Spy Kids program goes missing causing betrayal and deception within the O.S.S. in the wake of and old threat from the agencies past. Spy Kids: Menticide occurs several months after the events of Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

He moved cautiously down the hallway. There were so many places to look, he needed to keep focus. He was still new to this, it was only his fourth assignment. Things had pretty much gone according to plan, and when they didn't they had still achieved the desired results in the end.

That may have been part of the problem for the two of them, that in they were still inexperienced.. They had been assigned to infiltrate this facility, to retrieve something and return it to the O.S.S.

They were not prepared for the scope of events that were about to unfold, none of them at the O.S.S. were.

* * *

Cecil moved down the hallway, Argonaut trailing behind him. He knew where he was heading. He and Rebecca had been briefed, shown the layout for building, and shows were they needed to go to search. They had split up to make things go faster, they may have disabled the security system but that did not guarantee they would not come across someone.

He looked thru the various shelves and cabinets using his tools to open those that were locked when needed. Their was no sign of what he was looking for. He left the room and worked his way to the next location.

* * *

In the distant night sky, two lights faintly lit the sky, flashing in a alternating pattern as it moved closer. It's low altitude would make it difficult to detect.

The helicopter approached it's destination rapidly as possible, touching down in a field nearby and shut down. As it's blades slowed their rotation four figures quickly exited the vehicle and surveyed the area around them as a fifth figure joined them.

They moved quickly to the building, they knew that those in charge of the facility didn't consider that anyone would want to take that was kept their or their would have been tighter security. Upon arriving at the planned entry point one of the figures utilized the code pad next to it a door. It went white to yellow to red and started emitting a tone as it warned it's user that they where running out of time to enter a valid entry code. None of the others seemed concerned by this as they waited for the pad to turn green, when it did and the lock had click opened they moved into the building.

Another of those infiltrating the facility had approached a display on the wall of the corridor and was entering commands into it by the time the rest of them had entered, it took less then a minute to discern that something was out of place on the display. The last of them to exit the helicopter approached the display to see what the problem was.

Several of the security systems had already been disabled including one that they had just brought back online. He watched the video feeds that relayed information from cameras to throughout the facility to the display. He knew where he needed to go withing the structure, knew what he was looking for, believed he had planned for every contingency, he was wrong however, this was something he had not expected.

On one of the lower levels he watched someone was going thru one of the rooms, whoever it was appeared to be small, this person didn't concern him too much, while they were on the same level he needed to get to they were on the opposite of that level.

What did concern him was a second person that had been located also, they were not only on the level he needed but in the very room he needed. He needed to move more quickly then originally planned. He had the cameras disabled again and moved toward their destination. Time may be of the essence.

* * *

This was the third room she was supposed to check, she wondered if Cecil been any more successful then she had, she would have contacted him but they were to maintain radio silence until they had left the ground of the facility. They hoped that hoped that one of them would have found what they were looking for and they wouldn't leave empty handed.

She continued to search hoping she had missed in the places she had already searched or if Cecil had found it. At that moment she opened one of the cabinets, sitting on a shelf was the device they had been looking for, she was sure of it from the pictures they had seen.

She slowly removed it from the shelf, setting it set it down on a nearby bench. It was smaller then they had been told. It would definitely fit inside the container she had brought to put it in, she opened the container and started to place it inside when the door opened.

The facility should have been mostly abandoned, the chances of someone coming across them were slim, especially with the security system disabled. She assumed that Cecil had come looking for her once he had completed his search. They knew where each other would be searching. She turned and was about to say something to him and stopped herself.

The figure standing in the doorway was not Cecil, it was dressed in black wearing some kind of helmet. They were not wearing the type of uniform they had been told about in the briefing that any guards were wearing and the figure was not dressed in casual clothing as anyone else would have been who worked there. behind the first she could see their were more of them.

The figure moved into the room followed by two others, the last to enter had different markings on the helmet.

"What do we have here?" the last of them to enter asked.

Her mind started racing, "Who were these people. Had they been told wrong what they would be wearing?" she though to herself as she started working out how to get out of this unexpected situation.

"I know what you must be thinking", he continued. His voice was calm, he did not seem surprised to find her here. "Your wondering if you have been discovered by the security of this facility, I can assure you haven't been, we are not with security."

This did not comfort her, if they were not with security she guessed that they did not belong there any more then she or Cecil did. "Who are you?" Rebecca asked.

He ignored her question. "I see you found what I came for. I appreciate you getting it for finding it for me, now that I have it however I need to decide what going to do with you. You have already helped once what would you suggest?" he asked her.

She didn't respond to his question. Her eyes wearing searching the room for any means to escape, she wished Cecil would show up and help her.

"You don't need to answer me." he said. "You have already helped me with this, I think I would use your assistance in other matters."

She focused her attention on him wondering what that meant.

"You will be leaving with me." he said catching her off guard.

"I can't go with you, you can't just take me", she said.

"Oh I assure you I can, the circumstances at the moment are in my favor" he said looking from one to the other that had entered the room with him. "This will make it easier for you to travel." he said as one of the others in the room took hold of her.

She struggled in to free herself as she felt a some small pierce her arm.. She started losing the strength to fight against those trying to take her. As she became less and less coherent she found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open, she continued to do what she could to free herself until she had fallen into a deep sleep.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The predetermined time they were supposed to rendezvous had come and gone, he knew he should have left by now now and reported in that she had not returned, he just couldn't bring himself to leave without her thou.

He had verified that he was in the right location multiple times maybe she had gone to the right place, he thought about looking for her or going back and looking in the areas she was searching but what if she came back here while he was gone.

She had never been late before, he knew something had not gone as planned, he was hopping it wasn't something to serious. Argonaut kept telling him they should go back and he kept ignoring him until he said if she had gone to the wrong place thinking it wasn't she would have probably gone back by now when he hadn't come. He agreed with this and after scanning the are one last time for any signs of her moved away, following the path they had come in by.

* * *

The light was uncomfortable, it seemed distant and dim but still hurt. Her eyes were closed yet she tried to close them even further, her head ached. She tried to remember what was going on, it was so hard to think, her thoughts, her whole head felt like it was floating. "Where was she, what was going on?" she thought to herself.

She could tell she was laying down, she tried to piece together what was going with little success. She remembered had finding the device and talking to someone, everything else was a blur. She spent the next several minutes focusing her eyes, she was in what looked like a hospital room, filled with different types of machines.

Rebecca didn't know where she was, or how she had gotten there, maybe she had gotten hurt somehow and Cecil had found her and had her taken to a hospital.

* * *

Cecil sat in one of the debriefing rooms back at the O.S.S. he had already gave a brief report into their mission, he didn't have much to give, he had not found what they had been looking for. Rebecca had not been there when he returned and he told the person that was debriefing him that she had not come to rendezvous point. He had then been told to wait here. He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, it felt like hours to him.

Thoughts were racing thru his head, Usually she was here with him during these debriefings, something must have happened to her out there. He wanted to go out and find he but knew that now that he had returned without her that they wouldn't let him go out to find her. He should have not come back until he found her.

Finally the door opened and at least little relief came over him as someone he recognized came into the room. Juni came over to him a knelt down to be closer to his eye level. "I know you are worried about what is going, we don't know if anything bad has happened, she may just not have returned yet." he said.

"It's been hours since she was supposed to meet me." Cecil replied.

"I know and I know you are worried, others are looking into it now to determine what is going on, I want you to go to one of the lounges and get some rest."

Cecil watched him as he continued.

"I have gotten a hold of Marissa and she will be here shortly. She will come and see you as soon as she can."

This made him a little nervous, he didn't know if she would be mad or what she would say to him.

* * *

Marissa got out of the car and proceeded thru the parking lot. She knew how dangerous these assignments could be yet she had given in to allowing the kids to continue receiving assignments, she may not have had any real choice with their first involvement with the O.S.S. but she did have some input with the decision to let them continue and in the end given in, only because she appeared to be in the minority.

She moved thru the halls at a brisk pace heading toward the Director's office with a look that she had a purpose and no one had better get in here way. Here thou at the O.S.S. others were used to dealing with people with such agenda's, as she rounded the last corner she entered the familiar lobby with a secretary sitting behind a desk. She had planned on just entering into the Director's office without stopping.

She had not expected the lobby to have so many others in it, didn't give it a second thought, that is until some of them moved to prevent her from entering the office, she then understood why they were all there. It had been predicted the state that she would be in when she arrived and they were their response to this. She was determined however to get into that office and continued to move towards it not intending on saying anything until she was inside.

"Mrs. Wilson, the Director will be ready to see you momentarily." the secretary told her.

She looked for any means she could find to get past them and into that room and decided that if she did anything but wait it would just delay her getting in.

* * *

Cecil had been informed that Marissa had arrived and that he was needed in the Director's office. This made him feel even worse then he had moments before. He now had two people who wanted to talk to him about this, he just wanted to go and find Rebecca.

He saw Marissa and Juni waiting outside of the Director's office as soon as he entered the room. "I'm sorry" Cecil he said quietly as she walked up to him.

"You have nothing to be sorry about." Marissa replied. "We don't even know what happened yet, their may be nothing to worry about." At least she hoped their was nothing to worry about.

Cecil nodded silently, no matter what she had said he felt like their was a lot to be worried about.

"I am going into the office now." Marissa said as the door opened. "I want you to wait out here until I come get you."

Cecil nodded. He wanted to go in but he also just wanted to be left alone, he had thought maybe he would find out that Rebecca would have returned and would be up here and when she hadn't been he began to feel sick.

* * *

Marissa and Juni entered the office thru the open door followed by two other agents, as they entered the office the Director stood from behind her desk.

Marissa came right to the point before the door even came to a close. "Have their been any updates since you called me?"

Carmen looked at at her, showing signs of concern on her face. "We have not had any updates and are still looking into it."

Marissa shook her head, anger filling her.

"From the information given by Cecil during his debriefing nothing out of the ordinary happened, they were told that they may not find what they were looking for so even the fact that he didn't succeed was not found out of the ordinary. We are doing everything possible to get to the bottom of this Marissa, and this needs to be said because I know you, and you may need to help Cecil accept , neither you nor Cecil will be assigned to any part of this case, if you interfere in any way I will remove you from any missions and confine you here."

Marissa already knew this was coming and barely waited for her to stop speaking before she started. "She is my responsibility and their is no way you are going to stop me from finding out what is happening."

Carmen let out a sigh. "I already knew you were going to take a stand in that direction. You are too attached to this, I know you are worried, that you want to find out what is going on, I will keep you updated, you have to trust me"

"You can't just force me to do nothing." she responded.

"Marissa it is for the best." Juni replied.

Marissa quickly turned on him. "This would not have happened if it weren't for you. They were just ordinary kids and you allowed them to become involved with the O.S.S. Did it ever occur to you that this is the reason the program was canceled."

Carmen interrupted. "Marissa that is hardly fair, those two kids saved us all, if Juni would not have done what he did there would have been no one to remove the threat of the Timekeeper."

* * *

Rebecca woke with a start, her mind had cleared up and she once again looked around at her surroundings. She was wearing a hospital gown, wires ran from several of the machines and had been attacked to her skin. She attempted to sit up and found that her legs and arms had been restrained. She struggled with one of the arm restraints for a few moments but was interrupted when the door opened to the room opened and a man entered.

"Nice you see you awake." Professor David Mathews said to her.

"Let me go." she said recognizing his voice from the facility.

"I am sorry but I am not going to be able to do that. I have a question for you. Why is the O.S.S. after the object I took from you?"

She had no intention of telling him anything, even if she knew. "I don't know, just let me go." she answered.

"I think you do know, but I didn't think you would tell me and that is not the primary reason I came in here, I have other plans for you." Mathews replied.

She watched him as he continued, wondering what he meant by that.

"You see these machines around you, with them I have the ability to affect peoples memories, I can totally erase them and I can produce new ones. I could take a lawyer and turn them into a homeless person who, a teacher and turn them into a pilot and even a spy and have them change which side they are on."

Rebecca starred at him, she had caught the last part of his comment and knew she was the spy he was referring to and it scared her, knowing what he intended to do. "You can't do that to me." she as she started to tremble, knowing that she had no way to escape and that he could.

"Don't worry from your perspective nothing will have even happened, you will not remember being brought here, working for the O.S.S., your family or your friends. It will all be replaced and you won't miss it."

"You can't do this." Rebecca said in a loud voice.

"I will do this, you have no choice in the matter." Mathews replied.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

She lay there, the effects of the anesthesia quickly taking hold as the gases continued into her lungs, she had been unable to hold her breath very long when she had tried. When she had been forced to start breathing she started to breath them in again her fear increased. She had been unable to find a way to get free, she had to thou, she didn't want to work for him, he scared her. She soon fell into a deep, unnatural sleep. It was the last thought the Rebecca Wilson she was had, soon she would be someone different, someone new.

* * *

The procedure was completely automated once the computer configured with it's instructions. The portion of process that removed memories had been simple for Professor Mathews to configure, it was the same for every individual he had done this to for years.

The configuration needed for adding the altered memories was more difficult however, thou not as difficult as it had been in the past. It used to take days to program but he had been able to reduce it to a few hours by storing predefined memory patterns into modules. He now only needed to decide what individual memories he wanted the subject to have and enter them into the system. Once that was done he only needed to configure individual details that would be unique for subject such as a name.

An arm moved out of a aperture behind were the upper portion of her neck rested, at the end of the arm was a small square came in contact with her skin, piercing it as it came in contact piercing the Epidermis and then Dermis layers as it moved deeper, once it came in contact with her brain stem it began to move upward thru it and started to spread into smaller sections as it moved into her cerebellum continuing to spread the deeper it went into her brain, withing thirty minutes points of the device were so small that they could enter the neurons and so numerous that each one had been breached.

Mathews stood by watching numerous displays as the process unfolded and moved into the next stage, making sure everything was going right. The machine began emitting electro-chemical from the array of tiny conduits that now spread thru her, destroying the billions of neurons. This may have been the easiest stage to program it was also the most dangerous, it could effect the functions of other systems inside her and the computer had started life support at this stage and would continue it until the complete procedure was completed.

The stage of the procedure was short in duration compared the one that followed and had only taken a quarter of a hour. The next had been extremely difficult to design in a manner that would function. Finding a way to replace the destroyed neurons alone had been a challenge since they did not automatically replace themselves and replacing them with ones that had the memory patterns he wanted had been even more difficult, taking over a decade to develop.

He watched as the new neurons formed using the blueprint from the computer, interacting with each other to form new memories and then those memories interacting with other memories, creating individual experiences that merged together creating larger experiences comprised of the smaller ones until the larger ones started formed together into what she would perceive as how her overall life experiences had made her the into the person he had programmed her to be.

The machine went then went into it's final stage and slowly removed the network that was spread thru out her brain, it proceeded faster then insert then the initial stage and only took half the time to finish.

He removed the mask that had been providing the anesthesia, the life support system would be left online until she had regained consciousness and could be examined. He left the room as it would be several hours before she woke up.

* * *

Marissa sat on the couch holding a book, she had been reading this book for the past few weeks in the rare event that she found time. Now that she had a lot of time on her hands she could not get anywhere in the book.

It had been over a week since Rebecca had gone missing, no progress had been made on finding her. Tensions had been high at home between her and Wilbur. He was blaming her for allowing them to continue in the Spy Kids program. Cecil had become distant and refused to talk about it with anyone, even the doctors that he had started seeing.

She blamed Juni for being responsible for what happened and had not talked to him since that first meeting, she hadn't even talked to Carmen after she had defended her brother's decision, which resulted in her not receiving any assignments from the O.S.S.

Everything was falling apart around her, around them. Life had changed in the short time since this all started. They were all suffering in the wake of these events and it was destroying their family.

* * *

She was looking up at the sky, watching the clouds move across it. She had just been thinking about something, what is was she couldn't remember. She turned her head, looking at her surroundings. People were walking their pets or jogging along a path, kid's were playing in a nearby in ground fountain or on a nearby play structure.

She slowly sat up, the sun was getting low in the sky, it would be evening soon, she needed to get home. She prepared to stand up and realized she did not know how to get home, she only had a vague impression of what her home looked like, she thought about calling someone at home but she couldn't remember a phone number or who to call. She didn't understand she knew their was someone at home, she had just been thinking of them while looking at the clouds.

She had been told that her memory would comeback to her and that it was only temporary. "Why would someone leave here alone if she was having problems remembering anything?" she thought to herself.

She sat there trying to go over her thoughts, trying to decide what she should do. She now remembered she was supposed to someone call the police to help her get home. She was so confused. She looked around for someone to ask and spotted a women on a cell phone. She stood up to walk over to her.

* * *

The sound caused him to roll over, who would be knocking at their door at this hour. He quietly got out of bed.

"What is it?" Marissa asked.

"Someone knocking at the door, you can stay in bed I will see who it is." Wilbur said.

He proceeded out into the front room and opened the door. Two police officers were standing on the porch. "Is their something I can help you with?" he asked.

"Yes, one of the officers said. "Earlier this evening we received a call about a child that had been found, when her prints were ran this address was on file."

He starred at them in disbelief. "Where is she?" he asked.

"She is currently at the hospital being checked out, she appears to be suffering from some sort of trauma and we have some questions for you on why she was found alone." the officer answered.

"She has been missing, what kind of trauma?"

"Their were no missing child reports associated with her prints in our system. Did you file a missing persons report."

He knew this was going to go nowhere, he didn't think it before but now realized the O.S.S. had not notified the local law enforcement that she was missing, he wasn't quite sure how to address the issue if the O.S.S. had deemed it classified. "Please come in" he said. "My wife can explain this better then I can."

* * *

"Yes?" she said after picking up the phone sitting next to her bed.

It took her no more then a couple of seconds to sit up. "Wait Marissa, slow down what did you say?" Carmen asked, not expecting to hear what she had just been told. "I will meet you there." she said and quickly disconnected the call and pulled up Juni on her contact list.

"Juni, the police found Rebecca and took her to the hospital, I need you to meet me their immediately." she didn't give him a chance to respond before she hung up and was moving out of her room and toward the front door.

* * *

She arrived at the hospital before Juni had, but not before Wilbur and Marissa. They were trying to see Rebecca with no success and were standing in front of two hospital security employees.

"What is going on?" she asked as she approached them.

"They won't let us see, Rebecca." Wilbur said.

Marissa put her hand on his arm to try and comfort him. She knew that Carmen would have to use her resources to take over jurisdiction of the situation. "Her doctor isn't permitting any visitors because of her condition, they won't give us any more information." she said.

Carmen already knew that she was going to need to pull some strings and had reached for her phone. "Why don't you to sit down this may take a little while." she said as she dialed a number.

* * *

It took over a hour for her to acquire jurisdiction of the situation from the hospital and local police, she had a medial team from the O.S.S. in route in case they were needed since she had not been able to get any information out of the hospital either. She asked and with great difficulty had gotten Wilbur and Marissa to wait in the waiting room. She had told them that they would be able to see Rebecca faster if they just agreed to stay out their and wait.

The truth was she didn't know what was going on but their must be a good reason the doctor would not allow them to see her and she knew that she may have to make the same decision about letting them see Rebecca, it addition they could make it more difficult for her to find out from Rebecca were she had since she disappeared if she was in a condition to answer questions.

When she entered the room she could tell something was wrong, Rebecca looked at her when she entered, the look in her eyes didn't show any sign of recognition. A doctor was in the room with her.

"Mrs Cortez. I am Doctor Moore. Would you care to step in the hall with me."

She followed him into the hall. "I do not like that you have pulled me out of this, I do not know who you are with I tried to prevent you from taking charge and was unable to. Something is wrong about all this, about how you were able to control. This child is suffering from something traumatic from what I can tell and it is not in the best interest to remove her."

"Your objection is noted, all of your reports are to be immediately turned over to my personnel when they arrive and no further tests are to be administered, I need the names of everyone who has interacted with Rebecca. If you fail to follow my orders I will detain all of you is that clear?" she replied.

"I am being given no choice it appears." he said. "I want you to inform whoever you report to that I objected to this, I don't even think you have the right child. She says her name is Amber and not Rebecca."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Professor Mathews sat there going thru his thoughts. He was behind schedule, not drastically, not in any way that would make his goal impossible, this new unexpected undertaking had just pushed back by a few a weeks at most.

The O.S.S. had provided the subject for this new project he intended to use her as another opportunity for his vengeance. He had taken a risk that he would lose this valuable asset by sending her away alone, he wanted them to see what he had done, he had no idea how they would interpret it, he wanted to use what he had done to her to send them a message however and hoped by sending her out to be discovered they would get the message he wanted them to have, he knew she would do what she needed to return to here, and then he would continue to utilize her in more of his plans as a further reminder to them.

* * *

Cecil sat up in his bed, he had been laying there awake for a while, thinking. It had been three days since he had been told that they had found Rebecca. He had not understood why she hadn't come back home when she had been found.

He had asked numerous questions and none of them would tell him anything. He knew that they were keeping something from him and wanted to know what it was, why he had not been allowed to see her and were she had been among the many other questions he had.

Finally, after many attempts had gotten a answer, after he had received it he wondered if it would have been better not being told anything, what he was told just brought up more questions for him and they once again would not tell him anything.

"I may be a kid, but she is my sister. I know she is here, I know their is something your not telling me. What am I not being told?" he had demanded.

Both his parents, Carmen and Juni had all looked at him, none of them expecting this.

Finally Carmen stared speaking. "Your right Cecil. She is your sister and perhaps we have been unfair to you in not telling you more then we have. I will only tell you a little more then what you know about what is going on, you will want to know more, you need to accept that what I am going to tell you is all the information you are going get."

She glanced around the room at the others, they all were watching her, some with questioning looks. "You see Cecil, what your sister has been thru we don't totally understand, something traumatic happened to her and she is not the same."

"What do you mean?" Cecil asked.

"Your sister does not remember anything that happened before she disappeared. We are not sure why this is or if it is permanent."

Marissa had moved over to him as Carmen spoke, she had placed her hand on his shoulder so he would know she was there.

* * *

He climbed out of bed and got dressed before going to find Marissa, she had said the night before that she would be leaving early to go to the O.S.S. and he had asked if he could go along with her.

There was little conversation between the two of them, his answers were brief when she asked him any questions, her questions were not anything of significance. She was just trying to engage in small talk with him.

Marissa hugged him and asked him to cheer up before she left him to perform the duties she had come her in for leaving him alone with Argonaut. He didn't have anything specific he wanted to do here, he only wanted to come because he he knew that Rebecca was in the building and it provided him some comfort knowing she was in the same place he was.

He was a little hungry and decided to go to the cafeteria, Argonaut following next to him trying to start a conversation with no success. He knew it was still early, the halls were mostly empty as he moved thru them.

The cafeteria was almost completely deserted, he was approaching the breakfast selection that was still being set up for the agents that would come in early partially set up when he saw her. She was seated near the far wall alone, as far as she could be from everyone else, taking bites from a bowl of cereal every so often.

He looked down at Argonaut, and knew that he had seen her also, he should have left him home or sent him with Marissa but had not predicted this turns of events.

"I don't know if Carmen or Marissa would like it if you went over there." Argonaut said, knowing what Cecil was thinking.

"Hopefully, they won't find out." Cecil said as he watched her. He knew Argonaut well enough that he would not tell anyone unless he was directly asked about it, he had become more loyal to him and Rebecca then the others as time went on, they had not been sure why this was but had decided to not tell anyone else their observations.

He didn't know how long he had been standing there, staring at her. He wanted to go talk to her but Argonaut had a point, if he was seen he didn't know how much trouble he would be in. In the end he decided he didn't care how much trouble he got in, he wanted to talk with her.

* * *

He picked up a couple of pastries and headed for the table where she sat, telling Argonaut to keep quite as he approached it. He was not sure what he was going to say to her, if what he had been told was true she would not know who he was, it would be like introducing yourself to someone new except from his perspective she was not someone new.

"Mind if I sit here." he began. "You are the only other kid in here and I don't like sitting alone."

She lifted her head and stared at him, the look in her eyes showed that she did not recognize him, her gaze made him feel uncomfortable. Maybe this was a bad idea, that look made him feel like she did not like him.

"I'm sorry he said, I didn't mean to bother you I will sit elsewhere." he said as he started to move away.

"No, it is fine." she replied suddenly. "You can sit here."

He slowly moved back to the table and sat down. She was intently watching him. What was going thru her mind he wondered.

"I haven't seen any other kids here", she said once he had seated himself. "I didn't even know their were any."

"Their aren't many." he answered. "I have been told their used to be more."

"What happened to them?" she asked.

"I don't really know, they just weren't needed anymore so most of them left. The ones that stayed are adults now." he answered.

She was still staring at him, the way she was looking at him, he didn't know what it meant.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked suddenly, he didn't mean to but his curiosity had gotten the best of him and he just blurted it out.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"They way you are looking at me, you are thinking something. I am just curious what it is."

* * *

The look on her face changed. He had caught her off guard and she had not intended to be. She wanted to keep control of the conversation. Her first instinct was to make an excuse to leave, she fought this urge however. She was curious what he, another child was doing at the O.S.S. He said their weren't many but their were others. She had not seen any of them, maybe they were keeping her from them. She did not trust anyone here. She wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

"I am just not used to being around other kids." she replied. "I've never talked to one before."

"You have never talked to one?" he asked. It was his turn to be surprised.

She shook her head. "This place is different then any place I have been to, what do they do here?" she asked.

"I don't know, just boring office stuff." he said after a few moments. "My parents work here and sometimes I come with them."

He was lying she was sure of it, they way he had hesitated before answering her question she knew she wouldn't get important out of him, it didn't matter, she was just curious what went on here. "Well I need to get going." she said as she stood up.

"Will I see you again?" he asked once again catching her off guard.

She once again stared at him, wondering why he asked that, it must be boring for him being the only child here or maybe they sent him here to talk to her, to get information from her. "Maybe" she replied as she moved away. Whatever that was about she couldn't let it distract her.

* * *

Carmen sat at her desk watching the screen. She had arrived early as was usual in her position, before coming to her office she had gone to the cafeteria to get something her usual normal drink when she saw them.

He was just sitting down at the table she was at. Her first reaction was to separate them but then she thought thought against it, she wanted to see how she would react. Instead of getting something to drink she headed straight to her office.

She pulled up the security cameras for the cafeteria and selected the one that would give her the best view, zoomed in and enabled the audio. She sat there listening to their conversation, watching them, especially Rebecca. She wanted to see her reaction to this situation.

She watched as the two interacted with each other until Rebecca had left, then she continued to watch Cecil, but found nothing noteworthy about his actions, he just sat there for a few minutes eating his food before leaving with Argonaut.

It was how Rebecca had reacted to the situation that interested and concerned her. She had changed in the few days she had been here, when she had first been brought here she had seemed disoriented, confused. She seemed less so now, more focused and becoming less like the Rebecca she remembered.

The medical personnel that had been observing and treating her had said it may be normal for her in dealing with the trauma she had experienced. They had been unsuccessful in determining what had caused this but had told her that their was no reason to be concerned since it had only been a few days.

Carmen was concerned however, whatever had happened to that little girl was causing her to get worse not better, it seemed to her that Rebecca was moving in the opposite direction then she wanted her to as she healed from this, and she wondered in what ways she would continue to change.

* * *

She lay in her bed waiting. What had been only days had seemed like a eternity to her and the longer she was here the worse it got. Over the course of those days she had begun to remember more of why she was here, something she had kept from those who had talked to her. Soon she would be free of this place.

She had looked around enough to know where the best location was, now she just needed to wait for the right moment. Too early and what she was might be discovered and stopped, too late and she might miss what she was waiting for. In either event she would be stuck her longer, something she did not relish the thought of.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Cecil moved down the hallway, when he had seen her in the distance he had been caught by surprise and was curious were she was going, he followed her the best he could hoping she didn't see him. She was also trying to proceed with out being detected, checking around every corner before moving on, he wondered why and what she was up to. He didn't think it was anything more then her playing a game.

By the time he heard the sound he had lost track of her. He had never heard it before and didn't know what could me making it, since he didn't know which direction she had gone he decided to find it's source. Maybe he would find her while searching for it. He moved thru the hallways as it got louder until he thought he was getting close. He knew their were a lot of things kept at the O.S.S. and was thinking it could be one of those. When he came to the next intersection, he slowly looked around the next corner in the direction of the sound and gasped.

Several dozen feet down was what appeared to be a waterfall running from the ceiling to floor and stretched from wall to wall, the light from the hallway reflecting off it onto the walls causing a rippling effect to play across the walls. Standing near the waterfall was Rebecca, she wasn't alone however, standing near her were three individuals wearing helmets.

He was confused, he decided to find out what was going on and moved around the corner.

"Rebecca what are you doing." he called.

All four of them turned and looked at him. One of the ones with a helmet moved towards him.

"Wait" Rebecca said as she started moving towards Cecil.

"I recognize you." she said to Cecil. "You are the boy from the cafeteria.

Are you following me?"

"I saw you in the hallway and wanted to see where you were going." he answered.

"Why?" she questioned.

Cecil hesitated with a concerned look on his face and she noticed it again, before when she had talked to him she thought she had mistaken but now she was sure she hadn't. She saw a look of recognition on his face.

"You think you know me, who is Rebecca?" she asked.

She intended to get as much information she could out of him on this as she could. It had been something she was curious about and now she had someone who may have some answers standing in front of her and she may be able to get him to talk about things the others wouldn't.

She saw him hesitate again, she could see he was worried about telling her, she wanted the information that she now believed he had however and she had to get him to talk.

"It is ok, you can tell me. You aren't going to get into any trouble. They said they would answer any question's I had when I was brought here, their isn't any difference in you answering me and the others."

He thought this thru, she was probably telling the truth, his sister would not lie to him about that, he didn't realize how much unlike his sister she had become and came to the conclusion it couldn't hurt to answer some of her questions, maybe he could ask some of his own.

"She is my sister." he answered once again catching her by surprise.

"And, she resembles me?" she questioned.

He nodded.

She found this confusing but interesting, that the O.S.S. had mistaken her for someone who was related to some of it's agents. If they had mistaken her for this other girl, then she must be missing. She took a leap in the conversation at this point, hopping she would not regret it. "I am sorry, the people here have mislead you. Their are a lot of people in the world that resemble others, I am not your sister?" she told him knowing that their was more that she needed to look into about this new development, she knew she could not have been able to just switch places. The police had run her fingerprints and that alone would have taken some effort to get them to match.

"You have to be." he replied. "They said you were."

She felt a little remorse for him "Those others, your parents and the people they work for, they are like you. They are hopping that I am her because they also lost her. It was wrong of them to tell you that I was her."

"You, are, you look just like her." he said. He was getting visibly upset.

"I am sorry but I am not, you are going to have a hard time accepting this, I can tell but my name isn't Rebecca, it is Amber."

He didn't understand what was going on, how complex the situation was or how they had come to determine this was Rebecca. When she had told him that her name was not Rebecca he started to think that they had made a mistake, he suddenly refocused his attention as he felt something poke his neck.

"I am going to be leaving now and I can't have you trying to follow me." she said. "You have been given something that will make you sleep. I am sorry, but this is the way it has to be."

The drug had already started to take affect as he tried to stand back up.

"Don't let him stand up, he could get hurt." he heard her say and felt himself being held down. He tried to fight his way back up and found he was too weak, withing in a couple of minutes he was asleep.

* * *

Carmen sat behind her desk, others from several of the many departments at her disposal were in the room with her. She was tired, it had only been a few hours last night's incident. She wanted sleep, wanted bad, but she had to find out what had happened. The O.S.S. had in a sense come under attack, infiltrated by a unknown threat and Rebecca appeared to be involved.

Then their was Cecil, he had been found unconscious in a corridor, apparently drugged. Nearby their had been signs of damage to the walls, ceiling and carpet of the corridor. They appeared to have been partially melted.

He had only regained consciousness a short time ago and he had not been completely forthcoming when he had been asked what he happened to him.

* * *

She sat there in her favorite cushioned chair as it rested against the wall. She was glad to be back here, she had been so uncomfortable these past few days, being inside the O.S.S. She was thinking of the conversation shortly before she had returned her with the boy.

She could not remember his name, maybe he had not told her. He was lucky she had sedated him, that she had left him there. Normally she would have brought him back with her. It was not like her to leave a prisoner behind. she had been taught differently. She didn't know why she had this time.

"Well this turned out better then expected." he said.

"What do you mean?" Amber asked.

"Using the data from opening that portal into the O.S.S., I believe I can accelerate the process of it forming."

"So those on the other side would have less of a warning that something was going on?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's always best to achieve as much surprise as possible. The field is still showing some instabilities thou and could collapse at any time while it is open if that isn't resolved."

"I would not have liked if I was stuck there cause the thing closed on me. You had me there to long as is." she replied.

"You knew it was necessary and as for the problem with the portal, I will have it resolved before to long." he replied.

He kept saying that it was necessary and she accepted that. She trusted him without a second thought but that didn't mean she wasn't curious as to why it was necessary, he had not told her that part. If she didn't trust him without question she would have asked. "I have had a long night, and past couple of days. I need to go get sleep." she said instead of the question she had on her mind.

"That is understandable" he answered. "I was surprised you had not done so already."

He stared at her as she left the room, she had integrated the new memories better then he had expected, he was only curious about one thing, she had told him everything that had happened, including the boy she had left behind, that was something he would not have expected, she was in control of the situation there, he would have expected her to bring him back He shrugged it off as he went back to work, it was unfortunate but the results of the process were not always completely predictable and it was only something minor and she had turned out better then he expected, better then of his previous attempts.

* * *

It had only been a couple of hours, it seemed like longer, it seemed like days. She sat alone in her office, exhausted, their had been no progress in those hours. She wanted sleep, needed it, their was still too much for her to do however.

When trying to gather information from the surveillance system in the area Cecil had been she had found the system had been brought offline in several sections. When she traced the a path back to what appeared to be the source she discovered it was in the section Rebecca had been staying, and it had been discovered that she was missing again.

Carmen had come to two possible conclusions, someone had come after Rebecca and was responsible for the surveillance system failures or Rebecca herself was responsible. She didn't want to believe the second one but it seemed like the more probable at this point with the information she had.

If she was somehow responsible it brought up numerous other questions and concerns, she had not received training that would have allowed her to disable the systems and even if she did somehow why had she. She wanted the answers, needed them but that would have to wait, she had something else to deal with, something she dreaded maybe even more then what had already happened. She had kept them waiting long enough.

* * *

"What happened her?" Wilbur asked focusing on Carmen. He had immediately sat down in front of the desk upon entering the room.

"Marissa, please sit down." Carmen replied, ignoring his question for the moment.

Marissa, stared at her for a moment and then moved to a chair next to Wilbur.

"Where are the kids?" Wilbur asked.

Carmen looked at him and decided she would just start as well start their. "Cecil is ok, he is in the infirmary, but he will be ok."

"What happened to him?" Wilbur asked.

"He was found unconscious, they medical staff said it is nothing serious, he is recovering now."

"What about Rebecca?" Marissa asked.

How was she to go about this, she had been working it over and over in her head and was still not sure as to the best answer. "I am going to be as straight forward as I can about this." she began. She could tell this did not go well with either or them, she was intent on keeping control of the conversation if at all possible and quickly continued.

"As hard as it to accept or even believe at this point it appears that Rebecca is responsible for what happened to Cecil. She somehow managed to disable surveillance systems, allowing us to be infiltrated."

They were just both starring at her now. Both setting into a form of denial.

"That isn't possible." Marissa said as if it was a matter of fact. "Where is she now?"

Carmen sighed, "She some how left the O.S.S., those investigating the situation have not been able to determine how."

"What?" Wilbur said "You had just found her, had her in a secure here and now she is gone. You have messed this up from the beginning." he said pointing a finger at Carmen. "This organization has messed this up from the beginning, you gather information on who knows what, you have dealt with problems greater then this. How could you have not seen this coming?"

He stormed out of the room followed immediately by Marissa.

"Honey stop," she called after him.

He turned to look at her, "I allowed this to continue after the threat from the Timekeeper, even thou the kids were in danger then, against my better judgment, you yourself told me that you did not think they think were ready for this but circumstances had forced them to get involved, I could see that but circumstances were not forcing them to continue. I trusted you, I trusted all of you and now my daughter is missing."

He then turned left the lobby.

"Wilbur." Marissa called out softly as he moved out of view. She did not follow him, she just stood there.

Carmen had seen the altercation between the two, she was not sure what to say, the position she held could get a lot harder then she thought possible. "He won't get far." she said finally, nothing else coming to mind. "I am keeping both of you here, I can't afford either of you doing something rash or doing anything that could make this worse."

Marissa slowly turned and face her. "He is right, this is my fault, it all has been from the beginning. If I had just told him everything at first, maybe he would not have married me, the kids would not have become involved with the O.S.S. and would now be safe."

"Marissa, you could not have seen this coming, you did what you thought was best, you need to think of the good things that have happened because of your marriage."

Marissa nodded silently, approached Carmen and hugged her, tears streaming down her face.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Cecil waited, the women behind the desk told him that Marissa was on her way. He just sat there, staring at the door in front of him. Waiting to be allowed to go in. He had some questions and he wanted answers.

Marissa arrived and came straight over to him, "Are you ok?" she asked.

He nodded. He didn't know what to say. She was gone again, but she may have not been their in the first place.

"She's ready for you." the secretary said just as Juni entered the room. He did not expect him to be their too.

* * *

The three of them entered the office that had almost become their home away from home these days for some of them. They all sat down. No one started talking at first.

"For some of you I am sorry to have to keep bringing you here." Carmen said.

Marissa lowered her head a little but kept her attention on what was being said.

"But their are some questions that need answering and I thought it would be best for all of you to be here."

"As you know, something happened here last night and their is a lot we don't know. Any information that I can get could provide at least some of the answers that are needed."

She then turned to Cecil. "Cecil, how are you feeling?"

"A little better." he replied.

"That's good to hear. I am going to need to ask you some questions first I need to know why were you the area your were found in?" Carmen asked.

He looked at her, he did not want to go thru this but he would have to tell her anyways at some point.

"I saw Rebecca in the corridors and decided to follow her to see what she was doing. I lost track of her thou but hear this weird sound and decided to see what was causing it."

"Did, you find were it was coming from?" Carmen was not aware of the sound, he hadn't told anyone about it, he hadn't told anyone much of anything yet.

"Yea, I kept following it as it got louder."

"What did you see when you got there?" Carmen asked.

"Their were several people wearing wearing helmets, I have never seen them before I hadn't seen before, Rebecca was with them and they were in front of this thing, it covered the whole hallway, it looked like a swimming pool but on it's side." he answered.

"What were they doing?"

"Nothing, just standing their."

"When they saw me Rebecca came over to me and started talking to me."

All three of the adults were focusing on him, they had not expected this part. "What did you talk about?" Marissa asked.

"She said that she wasn't Rebecca and that you shouldn't have told me that she was."

"Did she say who she was?" Carmen asked.

"She told me her name is Amber. I don't understand what is going on. Who is Amber?" he questioned.

"I am not sure Cecil, the doctors have not been able to find out why she uses that name. Is their anything else that you remember?" Carmen asked.

"No." he said as he shook his head.

"I want you to go with your Mom back to your rooms for now." She turned to Marissa. "I will talk to you later about all this, he needs to get some rest."

The two of them left the room, heading back to were they were staying.

* * *

"What do you think?" she asked Juni after they had left.

"About which part?" he replied.

"Any of it." she answered with a sound of annoyance.

"Well, I do not believe that girl is Rebecca, she was able to take down systems that Rebecca had no idea existed let alone how to disable them. Do we know if she took anything or left anything before she left?"

"Both of those questions are being looked into."

"Then all we can do is wait, Cecil gave us some information, unfortunately we need more." Juni replied. "Who do you think is behind this? I doubt it is her."

"I don't have the answer to that either, I don't even have a guess." she replied.

* * *

She sat their staring at the monitors that filled the room. The image shown on the on each one changing periodically. They showed images from everywhere, traffic camera's, security camera's, weather camera's all being intercepted and routed into this room.

She was bored, which happened sometimes when he was busy. He would lock himself in his office, leaving her with no one to talk to and little to do. She wished he would get more interesting things around here.

She continued watching different screens, it was the closest thing she had to a TV here. Watching the people moving about their daily lives, a little curious but not enough to want to go out there and join them if she could avoid it, that was until something on one of the monitors caught her attention. She hit a few keys on the keyboard putting the image from that monitor onto a bigger screen.

It was that boy from the O.S.S., curiosity getting a hold of her. There was more she wanted to know, that she had thought since she returned and he provided an opportunity to get some answers.

How much could she trust him thou, his parents worked for the O.S.S. She decided she could not waste this opportunity, she wouldn't go alone however. She looked at the lock door of his office. He would probably not even know she was gone, he could be in there for hours.

She surveyed the the scene around where he was at, he was sitting at a table in a park, across from a girl about his age, she could also see that their were other O.S.S. personnel their with them. She sat there for several minutes contemplating how she could pull this off. She looked at other cameras from around the park, putting together her plan.

She stood. "You two, come with me." she said to two of the others in the room. They immediately began following her into the room with the portal device. She grabbed something from off the wall, and started using a nearby console.

* * *

Cecil sat there, he was bored, the Spy Kid program had been suspended leaving the it's agents with nothing to do. Samantha Richards sat across from him. She had been one of those that had been recruited after the incident with the Timekeeper. Both Cecil and Rebecca had helped train her.

She didn't know much about what was going on, only rumors that Rebecca was missing. She had thought she heard that she had been found but even thought she saw her once since then but she must have been mistaken since the most recent information she had heard was that she was still missing.

"I am going to go get a drink." he said as he stood to go over to the drinking fountain. He wasn't thirty but it was better then her constant questions, as if being bored wasn't enough. The agents assigned to him watched were he was going and then went back to what they had been doing. He had gone to the drinking fountain so many times today that they had become accustomed to it and had gotten lax.

He was in the process of getting a drink when he heard someone speaking. At first he thought hey weren't talking to them, he looked up to see who it was talking and who they were talking to and starred in disbelief.

Almost completely concealed a small nearby building was the girl from the O.S.S., the one that looked like Rebecca. He looked back at Samantha and then the agents, none of which were looking in his direction. He moved slowly towards her until he was close enough to talk in a quieter voice. "Amber?" he said questioningly.

"Who else would be trying to get your attention without drawing others?" she asked quietly. she worked that thru her head after saying it and realized that may have not been the best thing to say. "We need to talk come around here out of site." she said.

He knew remembered what she had done to him at there last encounter and hesitated.

"If I was going do anything to you I would have done it at the O.S.S." she said seeing the reluctance on his face.

He thought this thru and decided to follow, he still had some questions he hadn't had the opportunity to ask. He rounded the corner taking him completely out of view of the agents and stopped. A few feet away were two of the helmeted guards.

She looked at his face and then at guards. "Don't worry." she said looking back at him. "they won't do anything unless I tell them to."

"Why should I trust you?" he asked. "I could just call over the agents with me, they are looking or you."

"You would have done it by now. You want answers to questions just like I do. You help me and I will help you." she said.

She had him their, he wanted to know what had happened to Rebecca and since the had believed that she had some of the answers, she had come to the O.S.S. in his sister's place she must know something about were she was.

"Ok. This time I am asking the first questions thou." he replied. "Tell me what happened to my sister?"

She could see how that was fair given what she did last time they were together. "I am not sure right now, but I will look into it." she replied. "Believe it or not our questions are similar in nature and I want to know this also."

"How could you not know, you took her place?"

"I wasn't told about her before I was sent to the O.S.S. and when I found out that I resembled her and realized that is how I why was permitted inside I had questions of my own."

"If you didn't know then who sent you?" he asked.

"That isn't important. If our investigation needs to go down that route I will handle that part of it." she replied. She was not going to expose him to the O.S.S. know matter what. If he found out that she was even out here talking to him he would be displeased, she could handle things if he found out about this, but not if she betrayed him even, she had no intentions of doing so in any case.

"We?" he asked.

"I don't like this anymore then I am guessing you do, but we are going to need to work together to get the answers that each of us want."

"What do you need from me?"

"The place your sister disappeared from, I want to know everything about it, what you two were doing there, who else was there. Everything you can think of no matter how small."

"Why would you need to know this from me, whoever you work for must have been there."

"You are right, but I wasn't and haven't been told anything about it. It is were she disappeared from, were her part in this all began. A lot of things don't make any sense, even to me, but that is the first step in finding the answers."

"This doesn't make any sense. You don't know why you look like her or why you were there even thou you were sent to pretend to be her."

"I wasn't sent to pretend to be here, I was sent because I look like her, like I said I didn't know about that part, but think it thru this way. From your perspective this all started when she disappeared, but I have been a part of this for years, not knowing that I was. The all had to be planned in advance years ago, back before I was born or I would not look like her."

"Say I believe you, neither of us worked for the O.S.S. that along ago, my dad didn't even marry Marissa didn't even know Marissa until a few years ago and she is the only reason why we are there."

"You work for them, you said your parents did?" she asked catching him off guard.

"Forget about that part." he said hoping she would drop it.

"Wait a second, you two were on a mission for the O.S.S. when she disappeared, weren't you?"

"Yes, lets change the subject." he said.

"That might be important." she replied.

"I don't see how, no one would know before you were born that me or Rebecca would be working for the O.S.S., it just doesn't make any sense."

She had to agree with him, that didn't make any sense. "Our best option is to find out what happened when your sister disappeared. I can't think of any other place to start without attracting unwanted attention."

"What kind of attention, the O.S.S. could use anything we find out to help find her." Cecil said.

"That could be but I don't trust the O.S.S. first of all but that is not the attention I was referring to. Things have been kept from me and I want to know what they are and why." she said feeling conflicted. She believed their was a good reason for all this, however with the boy's recent perspective things had gotten more complex and confusing. She was questioning her trust, her and the boy must have it wrong, she had to get the full story to prove to herself that he was not doing something of this magnitude to deceive her.

I Suddenly Samantha came around the corner, "Where have you been?" she said and then stopped taking in the situation she was now in. "You", she said looking at Amber. "Cecil what is going on here?"

Amber looked toward her, an unfortunate and unexpected turn. She had to think fast. "Take her" she called back, one of the guards had closed the distance to Samantha within seconds, she had no chance to retaliate or call for help..

"What are you doing?" Cecil called in a slightly elevated voice.

"Keep your voice down, those agents may show up at any moment. You know as well as I do that she would have ruined everything. I need to go now and I will need to bring her with me. Take this I can communicate with you thru it." she said tossing him the device the had grabbed before coming here.

Before he could say anything things he had seen in the corridor at the O.S.S. appeared. He thought of calling for help or following her, either option could ruin his chances of finding Rebecca however. Everything was happening so fast that he was still making a decision when the object vanished from sight.

* * *

She was not completely sure why she had just done that. She didn't even know if this would all be worth the trouble. She had felt more sure while she was there, but now she was second guessing herself. She headed toward his office, he would most likely still be there, having no idea what had just transpired. She tried the door, as she had expected it was still locked, she had haphazardly come up with a plan. It was the best she could do on such short notice. .

"I have something for you." she called thru the door.

She waited a few moments, could here movement coming from his office. It took longer then she was used to for him to open the door, when he did she looked him up and down, he had a disheveled look to him. "Did I catch you sleeping?" she asked.

"What do you have?" he asked in a sleepy but curious voice.

"I have captured one the children who's parents work at the O.S.S.." she answered in a slight triumphant voice.

For a few moments he starred at her, then at the form being help by one of the units. "You did what?" he questioned.

"I just got back a short time ago, I noticed some O.S.S. agents in a park and noticed that they were watching her. I recognized her from when I was at the O.S.S." she said pointing at the girl. She didn't like lying at him but a lot was at stake is she didn't. "I am actually kind of surprised it worked. They definitely aren't as smart as I thought they would be."

He continued to stare at her. He had underestimated her that was for sure. Her hatred must run deeper for the O.S.S. then he had intended.

"What you did could have been very dangerous, you risked a lot." he said.

"I risked nothing." she interrupted. :They were unprepared for this, it may have been the reason they were their in the first place and if so they failed."

He looked at her, she was right. It looks as if she had risked nothing. He took note that she also had a darker streak then he thought and that could be of some use. "We'll you have raised my spirits with this a bit, it is something I had not expected. You have given me another advantage over them."

"So will you ransom her to them in return for something?" she asked.

"Maybe, I have not thought that far yet, have put in one of the cells." he ordered the unit holding her.

"What else would you do with her?" she asked out of curiosity.

"Their are always alternatives." he said as he re entered his office leaving the door open.

She followed him in wondering what that meant.

* * *

Cecil sat in the back of the car as it moved along the streets back to the O.S.S. The incident at the park had led him back along a path that he was not in the mood for, another agent had been lost, he felt responsible for this agent going missing more then he did his sister, he had witnessed it this time, been right there and done nothing to prevent it.

As they arrived at the O.S.S. he was escorted thru the halls, he knew where they were going, he had followed this path countless times, the escorted him inside Carmen's office as soon as they entered the lobby.

"Cecil, take a seat and tell me what happened." Carmen ordered without wasting a second.

"I already told them." he replied. "Why does this keep happening, and around me?" he asked.

"I don't care how many times you have told this. You are going to talk to me about this." she replied. "You saw Samantha taken?"

He nodded. He could tell she was upset and this was probably just the start of what was going to an uncomfortable few hours.

"And Amber was there?"

He once again nodded, he wished he hadn't included that part after he had mentioned it originally to the agents at the park but once he had it was too late to take it back.

"They used the same thing you saw her to leave?"

He nodded once again, he had no idea how else to respond. He just wanted to get this over with.

"That is all I need for now Cecil." she replied in and irritated voice, he wasn't sure if it was directed at him or the whole situation.

* * *

As she entered his office she noticed a door that had always been closed before was open and he had entered it, she entered the room expecting him to tell her to wait outside, when he didn't she started looking around.

It looked like a room you would see in a hospital, she then saw him. He was standing at one of the machines in the room with his back to the door, she assumed he had not seen her enter.

"What is all this." she said in a voice louder then she intended.

He quickly turned, startled by the sound and level of her voice as it echoed thru the room, "You don't need to talk so loud I am right here." he replied. "How did you get in here?"

"The door was open." she said matter of factually. "What is all this for?"

He stared at her for a few moments, wondering what he would tell her. She had been more then he had hoped and she had provided him the next subject he would be using it on.

"With this machine I have the have the ability to change say a doctor into garbage man, a librarian into bus driver or a fireman and turn them into gardener." he said.

She did not realize she had heard something similar in another conversation with him, from her perspective that conversation had never happened, and she responded as if they never had. "So you can change their clothes with all this. Why not just tell them to change them it would be faster?" she asked.

"That's not what I meant." he said rolling his eyes at her.

"What does it do then?"

"In the example of the fireman it makes them think they are a gardener."

She looked at him with a nonchalant expression. "Why would you want a fireman to be a gardener?" she asked.

"That was just a example. I can take people make them forget who they are and think they are someone else."

If it wasn't for the recent events back at the park she may not ever have caught it, at least not right away. All whole bunch of pieces to the puzzle came together with his last comment to her. She now knew she had been in this room before, knew that this had not all been planned years ago, that it's planning had started with the disappearance of Rebecca, that Rebecca had been captured just like the girl she had just captured, that she was Rebecca. He had done something more horrible then she had thought and now he intended to do it again.

She waited till a point arose that she could excuse herself without drawing suspicions. She was short on time, she didn't know how long it would take him to prepare. She had been making her plans while he talked, waiting for the right moment to leave the room, she never wanted to go in their again. She had to act tonight or someone else who experience the same thing she had and she would be responsible.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The shadows moving across his room created by the pulsating light woke him. He sat up wondering what was causing it, his eyes slowly focused on the device Amber had given him. He quickly put in and turned on his hearing aids. It was emitting a beeping sound. He looked at the door to his bedroom, hoping that no one else had noticed then back to the device.

He didn't know if he wanted to go thru with this, if it wasn't the only option to get information on his sister and to keep Amber from doing something to Samantha we wouldn't have, he felt like he was now trapped in this and that he had to continue. He reached out and touched the device.

"Boy, can you here me?" he heard thru the device.

"Yes, I can hear you." he said noting that she had once again called him boy, he was glad she didn't know his name.

"We need to meet tonight, something important has come up."

"What's going on?" he asked sounding skeptical.

"I understand that you probably don't trust me, but this is important"

"Is it about my sister?"

She hesitated, she did wanted to have his trust and not lie to him, especially now, but this had to be done, he was her only option.

"Yes, I have something you need to know. We can't stay communicating on this much longer, it might be detected." she told him.

She gave him some instructions as quick as she could and then disconnected the device hoping that it had not been discovered.

* * *

Part of him had hoped she would contact him this soon but he didn't think she actually would, he hadn't worked out a plan on how he would get out of the O.S.S. He sat there for several minutes thinking it over, he couldn't think of anything that would work. Any way out of the room would either be noticed by the surveillance system or by the agents stations outside in the corridor.

He then remembered then he wasn't alone in the room. He had been so caught up with the device waking him and the talking to Amber he forgot Argonaut was in the room. He looked over to were he had been laying, foolishly hoping that a robotic dog with very sensitive senses would not have noticed only to find him sitting there looking right at him.

"You kids manage to get in the worse predicaments." Argonaut said. "We mine as well go see what she has to say. It could be important."

"Argonaut are you going to go get Marissa?" Cecil asked.

"Are you crazy, if Amber has information on Rebecca we will never get it that way. I will go take care of the agents and will be on our way, If we are going meet her on time we have to hurry." Argonaut said.

* * *

"Are you awake?" she whispered into the cell as loud as she dared. She didn't need to worry about talking to loud for the guards to hear here but he could walk by at any moment and she didn't want to get caught.

"What do you want?" came a harsh reply.

"Not so loud, we need to get you out of here." Amber said as she opened the door to the cell.

"Why, would come with you, you are the reason I am here?" Samantha asked.

"We don't have time to for you to be obstinate, something extremely unpleasant has been planned for you, something you will not enjoy." Amber replied, she wasn't in the mood to discuss this, she had to get her attention and get her out of there. Removing her the same way she was brought, under sedation, would no doubt bring the attention she was trying to avoid.

Samantha stood there, not sure what she should do, she did not like the way the other girl had just phrased what she just said, she felt her grab her arm and pull her out of the cell.

"We really need to be going, I already had you prisoner, if I wanted to take you somewhere else here without your permission I would just have the guards do it." Amber said.

Samantha thought this thru, she had a point. She allowed her to guide her out of the room containing the cells. "Why would you help me escape when your the one who caught me." she asked.

"I didn't know what would be done to you at that time and at the moment it seemed like the best option I could not have you reporting that me and the boy were seen talking to each other."

"What are you and Cecil up to, and why is he even talking to you?"

She noticed she had called him by his name, she didn't have time to dwell on that however. "That isn't important right now, just accept that their is more going on here then you realize." Amber replied.

Samantha looked around as the entered another room, it did not have any exits, just a lot of devices strewn thru out it. "It is a dead end, why did you bring us in here?"

"This is were I live, I know where we are going." Amber replied.

She watched as Amber used one of the devices and jumped back as a field of energy formed linking several other devices together. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's the way you came here, it is safe. I need you to walk thru it."

Samantha hesitated, she had no intention to walk into it no matter what the girl said and was caught off guard when she was pushed into it, enveloped by a tingling sensation before finding herself it almost complete darkness. She turned to get a glance at the field on this side but only had a chance to look at it for a second.

"Come on." Amber said as she pulled her away.

Samantha looked back as she was being led away when she started hearing a loud noise behind her, the thing she had come thru had begun to change colors, the speed of the fluctuations increasing as she watched until it burst into millions of small lights forcing her to turn her eyes away from it. 'What happened to it?" she asked.

"Ok, see those trees way over there." Amber said ignoring her question. "You need to go to them, someone will either be there to meet you or if they aren't they should come shortly. If no one has come by morning, head in that direction." she said pointing. "That is the direction to the O.S.S."

"Your not coming?" Samantha asked.

"They can't know it was me or they might not trust you, they might not anyways. The only person that should know that I helped you escape is Cecil, if he mentions that I told him to come here because I had information about his sister tell him I do but I will have to give it to him later.

"Tell me what it is, I can give it to him." Samantha said. She wanted to know what was going on and felt she deserved it after what these two had dragged her into.

"Theirs no time, just do what I told you." Amber responded.

"Were are you going?" Samantha asked.

Amber hesitated, did not have a answer to that question. "I have other things I need to attend to. Now go quickly." she finally replied.

She looked at Amber and then started toward the area she had been instructed to go to, she looked back turned to look back at one point, Amber was no were in site. When she arrived at the trees no one was waiting, she saw a couple of benches nearby and went to sit on one.

She did not know how long she had been waiting, she was getting tired and wished they would hurry. She lay there wondering who was coming to meet her as she looked at the stars, it was peaceful and quite out here, soon she was asleep.

* * *

"Samantha wake up" someone was saying. She had had the weirdest dream, she opened her eyes and saw Cecil looking down at her, she then remember the events that had just transpired. It wasn't a dream, they had actually occurred, she didn't realize she had fallen asleep.

"Cecil, what is going on here?" she asked.

"I don't know I didn't expect you to be here. Where's Amber?" he asked.

"Is that what her name is?"

"Yes, where is she?" he repeated.

"She left after we got here."

"Sorry to interrupt you to but we need to be returning, they may already have discovered the Cecil has left." Argonaut said.

Amber watched from a distance as the two moved out of site followed by what appeared to be a small animal probably a dog or cat. She wondered why he would bring that with him but that was a question for another time she now had to decide what she was going to do next, where she was going to go, returning back the way she came was not a option, she had seen to that.

* * *

The two of them sat across the street from the O.S.S. concealed in the shadows. Their were a couple of people standing just outside the entrance.

"Argonaut do you think discovered we are gone?" Cecil asked.

"Maybe, but they could just on break out front also." Argonaut replied.

They sat their discussing their options for getting back inside. Argonaut had brought up a valid point that Samantha was technically missing still and that when she suddenly showed up their were going to be questions and they would be caught no matter what they did, in the end they all agreed on the best course of action they could think of.

* * *

She rolled over, grabbing her watch as it chimed, hopping it wouldn't wake Maria, Wilbur was in the other room, sleeping on the couch. Recent events had led into a rough spot between the two of them.

"This is Marissa" she replied into the device.

."Marissa" a voice across.

"Cecil?" she questioned. "What are you doing?"

"I'm outside and need help getting back in."

She almost dropped the watch. "How did you get outside?"

"I snuck out with Argonaut but theirs more." he said.

"Cecil, what did you do?" a feeling of dread had slowly started filling her.

"Samantha is with me."

She thru her legs over the side of the bed. "She's what?" She must have heard wrong, that made no sense at all.

"She's with me and we need help getting back inside."

Things began rushing thru her head about how this could even be a possibility.

"Were exactly are you?" she asked as she quickly put on some clothes. She did not know how he got out but assumed that Argonaut had played a role, at least he would be able to provide more details that Cecil could or that he would be willing to.

* * *

Carmen stood their in disbelief, looking at her. So many things so many unexpected things had happened recently. And they did not appear to want to stop. She had separated the three that were involved into separate rooms and sat with in the one with Samantha.

"Samantha, did you know that I have access to the assessments you were given when you started at the O.S.S?"

Samantha shook her head.

"I have been going over them, looking at what your talents your good at and what things your not. You are very creative when finding was to resolve certain types of situations and perhaps escaping is one of them, however your knowledge and ability with computer systems is only a little above average. You couldn't have done what you are telling me, not alone. I am going to have to ask you again, how did you escape? And please be honest this time, it will make things easier for both of us."

Samantha looked at her, not knowing what to say.

"Who helped you?"

She looked at her, nervousness building in her, she was trembling a little, but she was not going to give Amber away. "I already told you what happened." she said.

"Your assessments also show you to be stubborn. That was one of the reasons you qualified for the program." Carmen said. "I am going to need to hold you here at the O.S.S. until I get this all straightened Samantha."

* * *

The time had come to speak with Cecil, she had numerous concerns with how he was involved in some of the recent events, including this new one. He had been there when Samantha had been captured and now he had been involved in her rescue somehow. "Cecil, what is going on?" Carmen asked in a stern voice.

Her tone surprised him, scared him.

'This was not supposed to be what happened." he said in a trembling voice.

"What do you mean?"

"I needed to find my sister, to find out what had happened to her. I wanted to bring her back."

he said still trembling.

"What have you done?" she asked.

"I thought I might be able to save her. I ran into Amber at that park. She told me she would help me find out what happened to Rebecca."

"What did she want in return?" Carmen asked. She knew their was more to it then that, Amber was intelligent, she was using him for some other purpose.

He lowered his head, he didn't want to answer that but knew she would just keep asking him until he did. "She wanted to know about what we were doing when Rebecca disappeared. About the mission, everything I could tell her." he replied lowering his head.

"Did you tell her anything?"

He shook his head, "I haven't had a chance to."

"But you told her you would?"

"Yes." he said.

"How have you been communicating with each other?"

"She gave me something, we have only used it once."

"Where is it?" Carmen asked him quickly.

He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her.

She looked it over for a couple of minutes "I am talking this from you, you didn't know if it was really a communication device, it could have been something to hurt you or someone else."

He looked even farther at the ground, he felt as if he was going to be sick.

"How did Samantha get involved?" she asked, taking not of his reactions but continuing to question him.

"She showed up while we were talking, Amber had one of her guards inject her with something and then took her."

"And you didn't stopped her?"

"It happened so fast, before I knew it they had all left."

"That is all for now Cecil.." she called for the agent outside the door. "Take him down to security" she said.

Cecil left her office with the agent, he had never seen her this upset with him. Not that he blamed her.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

She sat there alone, at the end of the hall, darkness surrounding her, fear overwhelming her. She didn't know where she was. She did not like the dark, she felt disoriented, the edges of her visions were covered with a grayish ominous haze.

In the distance she could hear something, a sound she did not recognize. Maybe she wasn't alone as she first had thought, she wanted to go see the sound was coming from someone who could help here, but what if it was caused by something else, she couldn't see very far in front of her, a couple of feet at most, she could fall in a hole or trip over something if went searching.

In the distance she thought she she saw something move quickly, it was glowing faintly, or maybe it was carrying a light. It was too far away to tell. "Hey, is anyone there?" she called out. She listened for a response, only to hear the same unidentified sound in the distance.

Slowly on her hands and knees and crawled into down the corridor into the darkness, making cautiously feeling her way. After what seemed like hours she stopped, it was so dark, no matter which way she looked she could see nothing she felt around looking for the walls she had seen when that momentary faint light had crossed her vision and could not find them, all that was around her was emptiness.

She decided to go back the way she came until she could find the walls again, she felt her way around s she turned back toward where she had come from and started retracing her steps when she bumped her head on something. She didn't understand, she had just felt her way around and there was nothing. She looked hard trying to make out what she had run into, when suddenly their was a flash of light, as her eyes readjusted to the light she found that she was no longer alone, someone was standing in front of her, someone who looked just liked her.

"Your not Rebecca, I am." her doppelganger yelled.

* * *

She sat up with a start, she was sweating. Confused she looked around. She was sitting on some steps. Where was she and how had she gotten there, she tried to remember and the memories and of the nightmare flooded thru her, causing her to start to panic. She tried to think of something that would take her mind away from what she was feeling with little success. She was not well she knew that, she had started to remember the events that had led her to where she had been sleeping and those events coupled with the nightmare were affecting her stability. She was still only a child, her mind not developed enough to handle the stress of what she was going thru on her own yet.

The sun had now come up, this did not provide her with much comfort, she was hungry and she knew she had no way to get anything to eat. She sat there thinking what she should do next, she knew what she wanted to do, but that was not possible, she could not go back, part of her didn't want to even if she could. She had destroyed the only way she had ever used to come back and forth.

She looked around, this was the safest place she had found, the steps of some old warehouse, the yard around it protected by a fence. She had tried to enter thru some of the doors into the warehouse itself only to find them secured. From the size of the weeds and plants at the area surrounding the building it appeared to have been abandoned for some time.

* * *

She had snuck down there, she had been thinking about the events of the previous night and needed to talk to Cecil. She was annoyed about what Carmen had said about her skill with computers. She may not be the best but she knew she was good and had been able to determine were Cecil was located. The problem she had now was how to talk to him without being stopped. She did not know if Carmen had taken steps to prevent them from interacting.

She opened one of the doors tot he holding area, no one was at the desk out front. This was going to be easier then she thought, she just hoped they wouldn't come back until she had left. She moved along the line doors, she would not be able to open the door and would have to talk to him thru the crack at the bottom.

"Cecil, you there?" she said once she had arrived at the door.

"What are you doing her?" he asked.

"No time for that, you told them the truth didn't you, that's why your in here."

"Carmen would have put me in here anyways." he responded.

"Maybe." she said. "I want you to tell me what is going on."

"If you get caught talking to me Carmen will put you in here too, probably in one we can't talk to each other."

"Maybe, but I was thinking before I came to talk to you. When Amber rescued me, we came thru that doorway or whatever that thing was. You saw the one when I was captured right?"

"Yea, so." he said.

"What did it look like after I was taken thru it?"

"What do you mean?"

"When Amber was done using it. How did the doorway close?"

"It just disappeared, why?"

"Because when we came thru it last night it changed a bunch of colors and looked like it exploded. You have never seen it do that before?"

"No. She didn't tell you why it did that?"

"She didn't mention anything about the doorway after we had gone thru it, I think that she destroyed it thou and that is what I saw."

"Why would she do that?" he asked.

"Maybe she didn't want us to be followed."

"But she couldn't get back if she destroyed it."

"I know." she said. "Which means she is out their somewhere, by herself, probably hiding from whoever she works for and from the O.S.S."

"You have to go find her, I can't leave here." he said.

"I know but do you have any idea where she would go?" she asked.

"I don't, she never mentioned anyplace she would go. You don't think that you should tell Carmen?"

"No, of course not. If she is out their and Carmen sends the O.S.S. out their looking for her then she won't come to them, if she has the chance she will go farther into hiding and we may never find her."

"So what do we do?"

"I will have to think on this, I will try to keep you updated but I can't promise you I can. I have to find her."

"Then what will you do, where would you take her if you find her?"

"I don't know I will figure something out."

* * *

Carmen sat at her desk looking at her monitor. Samantha made a good argument, she could not just send agents out there looking for her, she would go deeper into hiding. From what she had just heard from the conversation she may be on her own out there somewhere, if she had nowhere to turn she would have no resources. She would have to help Samantha without her realizing it.

* * *

Professor Mathews sat there, going thru the computer system, working diligently to find a solution to the problem. Why had she done this, what had caused this he wondered. She was showing so much promise, had been one of his greatest accomplishment and then this.

The next phase of his plans had now had to be accelerated, he needed to act soon, today if at all possible. Once he was done with the O.S.S., he would turn his attention back to Amber, he would find out what went wrong.

* * *

It had been remarkably easy for her to get out of the O.S.S. So easy that she should have thought about it before she had left. I water pipe had burst just inside the main entrance while she was trying to think of a way to leave causing those working the desk to seek shelter. She saw her opportunity and decided even thou she was not completely ready that leaving right them was better then waiting for another chance later.

She just needed to decide were to find her and decided to go back to were Cecil had found her. There wasn't a better place to start, it still hadn't been more then twenty four hours and if she was right Amber would be on foot, meaning she would not have been able to go too far away. She just had to think were she would have gone.

* * *

It had proved more difficult then she thought it would finding streets to walk down that didn't provide her with reminders how hungry she was. She had not come up with a solution to the problem of getting anything to eat, hadn't come up with a solution to anything.

She knew she could wait until tomorrow if she needed to but she did not want to go back to the warehouse she had been last night, she didn't want to have the nightmare again just thinking about it made her not want to eat anything. She knew it hadn't been real but it still frightened her.

She may be able to wait till tomorrow to worry about food but she couldn't prevent herself from sleeping for to long, it would come on it's own whether she wanted it to or not. She would just have to deal with the nightmares if they came back she decided it was getting late and it was safer at the warehouse then anywhere else she had found.

She turned and started back down the street, not realizing she was being followed. She had gone less twenty five feet when someone pulled her into alleyway. She was preparing to fight back when she recognized who it was.

"You, what are you doing here?" Amber asked.

"I've been looking for you." Samantha said.

"I told you to go wait for Cecil not follow me."

"I did and I found him"

"Then why are you following me, go back to the O.S.S."

"Because me and Cecil were talking, he had seen one of those doorways close before and it looked nothing like the one from last night. You destroyed it didn't you?"

"So?" Amber responded.

"So, where are you staying at right now, you have no place to go."

"That is not something to concern yourself over."

"You saved me from something, I don't know what but it was something bad enough that you did. I want you to tell me what it was but that is not important at the moment. You made it so you can't go back and I am sure you have nowhere to go. I owe you."

"You don't owe me nothing, just go away and leave me alone."

"Don't be stubborn. I won't leave and you can't make me, you may have had the upper hand last night but I do now. Have you been walking around since last night?"

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Amber asked.

"I would just give up on that if I were you because it isn't happening. Now when is the last time you had something to eat, I don;t know about you but I haven't had dinner yet and there are plenty of places to choose from around here." Samantha replied.

She gave up, she was obviously not going to get rid of her and she was really hungry. "Fine, pick a place, when were done I'm leaving thou."

"Will talk about that while were eating." Samantha said.

* * *

She watched from the video feed that she was intercepting as the two girls entered a restaurant. It had gone easier then she thought thou now had to deal with the water damage that she was responsible for in the front entryway of the building.

Carmen had decided she would just watch what transpired for now, if she needed to she could intervene but she believed Samantha could handle the parts of this that required contact with Amber and she could supervise from a distance, she just wished that all the cameras she used would provide audio.

* * *

The three helicopter's flew low along the valley floor, increasing altitude only as needed. The closer they got to their destination the more difficult it would be to remain undetected. He would do everything that he could to reduce the amount of time they had to prepare.

He had already successful infiltrated their facility once. He didn't foresee he would have any difficulty doing it again.

* * *

"So those are all robots?" Samantha asked.

"I didn't mean to tell you that. Please forget I told you." Amber said.

"What are you worried about?"

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

"What's he going to do. He isn't even here."

"Doesn't mean he won't come looking for me."

"We'll if he does we will just have to make sure he won't find you."

"And how do you propose we do that, he has a lot of resources. I don't even know what they all are."

"He's not the only one, I intend on hiding you from the O.S.S., I don't think he would be able to find you either."

"You could be wrong."

"Possibly, but I am not going to overly creative on were I am hiding you. They will be looking for a really good hiding place that you have found. I am going to put you in a motel."

"Your kidding right?"

"Not at all, you have some experience at deception I know. If you were them would you look at a run of the mill looking motel for someone that is hiding from a spy agency?" Samantha asked.

"I see your point. Amber said.

"Don't worry you won't be their alone. I doubt they are already but they will be looking for me soon. We should be going."

"Your staying with me then?"

"It would be easier for any of them to find you if I keep coming back and forth. Consider it like a sleepover." Samantha said.

Amber did not know if she liked this idea, thou it was better then sleeping at that warehouse and differently safer. She didn't know if she could trust Samantha, it seemed she had no alternative however.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Samantha laid back down on her bed and picked up the magazine that had been in the drawer. "How can you watch that, it's so boring?" she asked.

"I don't think so I have never seen this before." Amber replied.

"This show is old, how could you have not seen it on TV before?" Samantha asked her.

"I didn't have a TV to watch it on."

"That place has a bunch of technical stuff and but no TV?"

"Never have had one, I wanted one sometimes but never asked." Amber replied.

"Why not, maybe you would have got one."

"He hardly ever got stuff I asked for so I just stopped asking."

"What did you do for fun then?"

"Read in my room, or watch the what was happening on the monitor's linked to camera's around the country."

"Oh that's cool they can do that at the O.S.S. also, oops I shouldn't have told you that."

"Yea, who am I going to tell?" Amber asked sarcastically. It had only been a couple of hours but she was starting to like Samantha and that troubled her.

They were both in hiding, each from their respective each others organizations. Technically they were working for opposing sides, working against each other or should have been. Yet here they were, working together.

"That's true. So are you going to tell me why you rescued me?"

"I let you go, not rescued you." Amber corrected. She didn't didn't want to think that she had gone against what was expected of her, what she expected of herself and helped her escape.

"Whatever you call it, why did you do it?" Samantha asked.

"I already answered your question earlier.."

"You told me that something bad was going to happen to me and nothing else. Why are you hiding it?"

"Because I don't want to talk about it. Can you just drop it?" Amber asked.

"Ok, fine." Samantha replied in a grumpy tone.

"How long are we staying here?" Amber asked.

"I rented two weeks, told them it was me and my dad. We are going to need to stay inside as much as possible so they don't get suspicious. I don't think they would believe me that your my dad."

"Your really weird." Amber responded.

"That is what my brother always says."

Amber thought about what Samantha just said. She had been thinking about Cecil, he was Rebecca's mother and that meant he was hers. "What do you know about Cecil's sister?" Amber asked her suddenly.

"Rebecca? Well she is one of the people who trained me at the O.S.S. I went on my first assignment with her and her brother. Did you really find out something about what happened to her?"

She hesitated before continuing. "If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone else, not even Cecil."

"You did find out something what is it?" Samantha asked.

"You have to promise me first, and not lie to me, that has been happening to much lately. I think you are very good at deception based on what I have seen today and I don't really want any more people deceiving me." Amber said.

"Ok, fine I promise, what did you discover?"

"Well, I found out what happened to her and that is why I had to get you out of there, he was going to do the same thing to you."

"What did he do to her?" Samantha asked, feeling a little uncomfortable that she may have disappeared also, thinking she may really not like what she was about to hear.

"This is really hard for me to talk about now that I know, he took her memories and erased them and then he replaced them with mine."

Samantha's mouth dropped open, she would not have guessed that, when she had composed herself she leaped over to Rebecca's bed. "You are Rebecca?" she asked.

"I was, I don't remember being her thou." Amber replied.

"And he was going to do the same thing to?"

"He said she was, that is why I had to get you out of there. I don't know what it was like to have it done, but I know what it feels like now for me knowing he did it to me and I couldn't permit him to do that to you."

"Can it be reversed?"

"I don't know and I am not sure I would want it to."

"Why wouldn't you now knowing that your Rebecca, wouldn't you want those memories back?"

"This is me now and I am scared of the thought being someone different, probably the same way Rebecca would have been if she knew what was happening. I hope she didn't know thou, it would be horrible knowing that was about to happen." Amber responded.

"You talk about her as if she is a different person, it is weird now that I know she is you."

"I know, it is weird for me to, weirder probably, knowing that I am talking about myself as if I talking about someone else. I don't remember being her."

"You look like her thou." Samantha replied.

"That's all that is the same thou, I don't even know if we liked the same things, some of thing I know we don't. The worked for the O.S.S. and I don't like them, and you said Rebecca helped train you. The first time I remember seeing you was at the park."

"You really wouldn't want to be her again?"

"Would you want to have yourself erased and made into somebody else?"

"No, but this is different, you would be returning to the way you were before."

"But that isn't me, not anymore, these memories may not be real, but to me they seem just as real as your memories do to you. To lose them scares me." Amber said.

"I understand. I am sorry this happened to you, thanks for saving me thou." Samantha said as she hugged Amber. Amber just looked at her not knowing how to react.

* * *

Mathews stood their looking at the field of energy that surrounded him, similar fields had surrounded all of those who had come with him moments after some type of EM pulse had been emitted from somewhere along the top of the building disabling the helicopter he had come in, possibly all of the helicopters, he had lost contact with the rest of his forces.

The O.S.S. building was not as vulnerable as he thought it was, he should have done a deeper intel on the building, he had been forced to move his plans up due to recent events and was paying the price for it. He didn't want to abandon what he had been planning, now he realized he should have, the amount of time he would have needed to wait would have been miniscule compared to what he would now need to wait since he had been captured.

* * *

Amber sat up as Samantha stood to go check the door. "Who could that be?" a concerned look on her face.

"Whoever it is let me take care of it." Samantha said as she opened the door.

Amber jumped to her feet at the same moment that Samantha jumped backwards. "What is she doing here?" she asked.

"Carmen, what are you doing here?" Samantha asked.

"You lied after I trusted you." Amber said looking at Samantha.

"I didn't."

"Calm down both of you. Amber she didn't lie to you she didn't know I was tracking her. I needed to find you. I couldn't permit you to be out here alone and I knew you would probably run if I sent out agents to find you."

"She is a agent." she said pointing at Samantha.

"Yes, but she didn't know that I had allowed her to leave to find you."

"You used me?" Samantha questioned.

"All adults will do that, remember what we talked about earlier, they will do whatever they want to their own ends."

"That's enough Amber. I know your upset about this necessary." Carmen said. "Why don't you share with me what you talked about."

"People keep telling me that things are necessary but not telling me why and I am tired of it, besides aren't the O.S.S. tracking systems, bugs or whatever you use working?"

"Don't get smart with me Amber, this was done to help you."

"You used your one of your own agents against her knowledge to do this. Your no different from any other adult I know. I am not going to answer your questions and neither is Samantha." Amber replied.

"Samantha, what you two talked about." Carmen said as she looked over to her.

She looked at Amber and then back at Carmen. Trying to decided what to do, she was a bit upset about what Carmen had done, and she understood reasons why Amber didn't want for anyone else wanted to know as their conversation had continued the previous evening till it had become really late."I'm sorry Carmen but Amber is right, You used me and she has good reason not to tell someone that she can't trust and I don't know if I can trust you now."

Carmen couldn't believe what she was hearing, she did not think things would go this way. "Your a agent with the O.S.S. Samantha, you will tell me."

"She doesn't want to work for someone who would treat her like that."

Carmen opened the door to the room, get her out of here. She said motioning to Amber.

Samantha moved to stop them.

"Samantha don't worry I'll be fine, she will still separate us no matter what we do." Amber said as she was taken from the room.

Carmen then closed the door. "Now Samantha tell me what you two talked about."

"I already told you Carmen, I'm not going to. Their is a good reason not to."

"She's not your friend Samantha, she kidnapped you remember."

"You don't know everything that is going on. Even thou I don't trust you now you will have to trust me, if you don't then I guess we don't trust each other."

"You don't think that I could help you two with this?"

"No I think you could make it worse."

"Samantha, but I am going to need to confine you also." Carmen said.

"I knew you would." Samantha replied.

* * *

Carmen sat in the room trying to decide what to say, so much happened in a short time. Someone had tried to attack the O.S.S., the attempt had been a failure and their was little information on who was responsible. In addition to the three helicopters, several dozen of humanoid robots and one person had been captured who they had been unable to determine the identity of. Amber had also been recaptured but in the process she had to confine another agent from the Spy Kids division, she had been a member of that division once and was trying to view things from their perspective but she just couldn't.

They had talked about something she knew that much, it seemed to revolve around how adults treat kids which she didn't understand, the two girls thought it was important however and Samantha knew that Cecil wanted information about Rebecca and so it had to be about that. Beyond that she could only speculate, she had to find out what they knew. They would no longer talk about it with each other thinking she wasn't eavesdropping, she had already played that card.

She was going to have to find out from Amber, she had managed to corrupt two agents now, Cecil was easier because of her resemblance to his sister but Samantha she wouldn't have expected that from, she had a tendency to do whatever she needed to find out what she wanted but this was different, she already knew what she wanted and had decided to side with Amber, she could tell from the look in her eyes she wasn't going to back down.

That left Amber who had changed from being the follower to the leader she was more dangerous then Carmen had thought. "I don't think you realize the importance that I find out what you two were talking about, I believe it had to do with Cecil's sister and I think it is important enough for you to tell me." Carmen said.

"Your beliefs or assumptions or whatever don't matter." Amber replied.

"Would Cecil agree with you if he knew you were withholding information on his sister?"

"Why does that matter, all he would have to go on was your perspective. He wouldn't have all the facts. If he did have them I think he would tell you anyways from what Samantha has said about him, that is why I told her not to tell him either."

"I don't know how but you pulled her into your web, you really think it is best that neither of you tell me what has happened to Rebecca."

"You don't understand how complex the situation is, by telling you it could make some aspects of it worse. I won't allow that."

"How can understand I if you won't tell me."

"You will just have to trust me."

Carmen felt like she was the child and Amber was the adult and not the other way around and she could not think of anyway to switch the roles.

* * *

"Juni, I am at a loss here." she said to him as he sat across from her desk. "I have two children here that have information about what happened to Rebecca and neither of them will tell me. One of them works for the O.S.S. and she still won't say anything. Amber has turned her against us to a greater extent then she turned Cecil against us."

"She won't tell Cecil?"

"No, she said their was no way she could make sure we weren't listening and that she wouldn't tell him anyways because he would just tell us. She probably got that from Samantha. Having those meet up again is turning more and more into a nightmare."

"Has she said anything that would even hint at where Rebecca is?"

"Nothing, she said if I knew that it would make things worse and she wouldn't allow it. She has the upper hand here and she knows it."

"Their isn't a way you can get Samantha to tell you?"

"No, she won't tell anything without Amber's saying she can."

"That doesn't sound like Samantha."

"I know, whatever it is that they aren't telling us it is Samantha believes it is something we shouldn't know for some reason."

"Amber has told her why we shouldn't know and she agrees it sounds like. Do you think that Amber may have a valid reason for why we shouldn't know?"

"I couldn't answer that without knowing what the reason is, which she is cryptic about. Anyways that is causing us to second guess ourselves. How do we get either girl to understand it is in Rebecca's best interest to know?"

"Maybe I should try and talk to Amber. She has probably become contentious toward you." Juni said.

"Your probably right and at this point it couldn't do any harm." Carmen responded.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"It won't do you any good, it doesn't matter who is asking me, I'm not going to tell you what you want to know." she said before he had even sat down.

"I am not here because I want information on Rebecca, there is something else I want to know from what I have heard about you."

"What is it?" she asked out of curiosity.

"I'm more interested in why you won't tell us rather then what. I have been curious about that part of all this, whatever the reason you believe it is valid enough to have convinced Samantha to not reveal anything either and she shares your perspective. I know Samantha and she would not blindly follow you unless she agreed with your viewpoint."

"So your here because you want to know the reason Samantha won't tell you?"

"That is the primary reason, I mean I wouldn't mind finding out the whole thing but that one part is what has been bugging me." he replied hopping he was getting somewhere going along this path in the conversation.

She didn't know if she wanted to even reveal that much, it could be used to find out everything, then again maybe she could use this to her advantage. "I would want a few things in return for answering your question."

"What would those be?" he asked. He knew that he she probably wanted something valued enough that he would have that he would have to talk to Carmen first before he could promised anything.

"First I want to talk to Samantha before I tell you anything and for her to be present when I do tell you, she knows all of you better then I do. She could help me determine if you are misleading me, second I want a guarantee that whatever you find out, I will be kept in the loop regarding me. I want to have the opportunity to give my input before any decisions have been made and finally I want to have a couple of hours everyday were I am permitted to spend time with both Cecil and Samantha."

He thought about what she had just said, especially the second thing she wanted. She was worried about something happening to herself if they found out whatever it was she was keeping from them. "I would have to get authorization before I could promise anything."

"Carmen is most likely listening if that is who you need to get your authorization from, if you wanted to get it now I am sure you wouldn't have to explain much before she decided if she was going to allow it or not, or we could do this later if it would be easier it might be easier for you to convince tell her that I will tell answer both of those questions if you can give me your guarantee and if I am permitted to talk to Samantha before and to get her opinion on if I can trust you, be warned thou if she thinks any of you are being misleading you won't find out anything from me.

* * *

"It's going to be our only chance to find out what we want." he said as he sat in front of her desk again.

"I don't know about allowing her to be in contact with Cecil or Samantha."

"It is only Samantha at first. Amber is going to do whatever it takes to keep control of the situation, she is willing to give up some of that control but wants something in return, she thinks what she is asking is a fair trade."

"So you agree with her?" Carmen asked.

"You know we would do the same thing. We may find that what she knows is not that profound, it is to her and to Samantha or she would not have agreed to keep it a secret."

"And what if it something profound as you put it?"

"Then she may have been smart to make these arrangements, anyways I don't want to think that what she knows would validate her desire to keep it a secret, not until I have heard it at least."

"Tell her that we will agree if she permits me to be with you when she tells you what she knows." Carmen said.

* * *

"Samantha come sick next to Amber." Juni instructed her as she entered the room.

She was not sure what was going on, was surprised to see Amber was in here. She had assumed that Carmen would keep them apart now. "What's going on?" she asked Amber as she sat down.

"I have made a arrangement with him to tell him what he needs to know, you being present is part of that arrangement."

"Do you think that is a good idea, to tell them I mean?"

"I am not sure, I want your opinion on that, part of the agreement is that they will talk to me before they make any decisions about what to do with me once they have found out, they will also allow be you and Cecil to spend some time together every day. Do you think I can trust them?"

Samantha turned and looked at Juni while she thought this thru. Carmen had followed her without her knowing, making her suspicious about her. On the other hand was it wasn't any different then her hanging around Cecil, pretending to be there for him when all she wanted from him was to know what was going on. "I think you can trust them. I know they want it bad enough that they would agree with what you want in return."

Amber turned to Juni. "Ok I will tell you what you want to know. I am trusting you to follow thru with everything., when Carmen arrives of course.

* * *

"Whenever your ready." Carmen said as she sat down.

"First, I know you will hopefully come to the same conclusion, neither me nor Samantha will tell what you are about to hear and I recommend you don't either. I don't think he could handle it with him being so close to this."

Both her and Juni dreaded hearing this from her, it was only reinforcing their concerns about what they were about to learn. A small part of her wondered is she really wanted to know what they two girls did, she was older them, more experienced and she could handle whatever it was if they could, or at least she hoped she could. "Go, on." Carmen said a little reluctantly.

Amber tried to get the strength to tell them and found it getting increasingly difficult. Finally she turned to Samantha. "Can you tell them, I am still having problems discussing this." she asked her.

"Sure." Samantha responded totally understanding, she wasn't sure she would be able to either if their roles were revered, she just had to determine how to say it, she decided to to it in a similar fashion to the way Amber had told her and looked at Carmen and Juni. "The reason that Amber rescued me was because she found out what happened to Rebecca and that the same thing was going to happen to me. Rebecca was changed, well part of her was, she was made to forget everything and then given Amber's memories, Amber is or was Rebecca."

Carmen stared at Samantha this development had not occurred to her, she had wondered about the similarity in the two girls, had done some research into how it was possible, memory alteration was not one of the thing's she had considered. "Who is responsible for this, who did this?" she asked.

"I don't know who he is, neither of us do. He never told her and he never talked to me, I only heard him when he talked to her."

"What are you going to do now that you know?" Amber asked.

"She is scared that you will erase her now and make here go back to being Rebecca." Samantha interrupted.

It all made sense to both Juni and Carmen now why she didn't want them to find out and why Samantha had agreed. That would scare them if they faced that and they were adults she was only a child. "I need to have a doctor look at you Amber, not have something done to you but to make sure your ok after what was done to you. I can't even imagine how hard this is for you. I will let Samantha be with you if you want."

"What then?" Amber asked, she wasn't sure what was happening, she was sweating a lot and it was getting cold in the room, over what seemed like hours she started to get dizzy.

"Get a medical team here now." she heard Carmen say right before everything went dark.

* * *

She opened her eyes, starring up at the white ceiling. She looked over at someone sitting next to the bed she laying on. "Samantha, what happened?" she asked.

Samantha jump a little startled. "Oh your awake. You passed out when talking to Carmen and Juni."

"How long has it been?"

"It's been almost two days, they kept you asleep while they made sure that you were ok, I've been here off on to check on you, when they told me that would be waking up soon I stayed. They didn't do anything you wouldn't want them to. Carmen promised me."

"I know I can remember who I am, being Amber I mean. I have such a big headache thou, can you see if they have anything for that?"

"Oh yea should probably tell the nurse your awake." she replied.

Samantha left and came back with the nurse after a couple of minutes.

"Good your awake." the nurse said.

"Don't remind me, can I get something for this headache?" Amber asked.

"Your friend already told me you wanted something for a headache. I will get it in a moment."

"Are we still at the O.S.S?" she asked Samantha.

"No they had to move you, medical their didn't have everything the needed to check you out. I have never been in a Ambulance before it was interesting."

"Glad to provide a way for you to entertain yourself." Amber said sarcastically. "Who else is here?"

"Right now just me, Carmen will probably come here at some point today now that you are awake."

* * *

She had decided she would talk to them one at a time, help each one come to terms with the situation, then have them help her the others. Marissa would be the first she would talk to, she had training that would help her deal with the situation better then the others, she had called her in and now just waited for he to arrive. Even thou their was someone else in the room she could have talked to she choose to wait silently.

* * *

Marissa entered the office started to one of the chairs on this side of the desk when she realized her and Carmen were not the only ones in the room. She looked to see who else was their assuming it was Juni and stopped when she discovered it wasn't.

Sitting in a chair next to the wall was one the crisis therapists that the O.S.S. employed, this caught her by surprise at first until she had time to think it thru, Carmen would only have one of them here is she was going to give someone bad news. She suddenly realized that someone was her and the bad news must be about Rebecca.

"Where is she, what has happened to her?" Marissa asked before her more loudly then she had intended.

* * *

She looked up from the magazine as someone entered the room, expecting it to be Samantha.

"What your reading about?" the women asked her in a cordial manner.

"Just, looking at pictures of clothes." she replied.

"Oh, I am sure you need some more." the women replied. "Have you found any that you like?"

She watched her, not sure what to think, wondered if she was serious.

"Is it alright if I sit on your bed, you can show me which ones you like." Marissa said when she didn't respond.

"Sure" she said with a little apprehension in her voice as she moved over a little to make room for her on the bed.

"My name is Marissa by they way." the women said as she sat on the bed.

Amber moved the magazine over so she could see it. She was not sure how to handle unexpected event. For next fifteen minutes going thru the magazine she showed Marissa which ones she liked.

"Is it alright if I take this magazine with me, I want to go get you some of these clothes you liked." Marissa asked when they had finished going thru it.

"Amber could only think of one reason she would be treating her this way. "Do you know me?" Amber her.

"I do." Marissa replied. "I know you very well."

"So we were friends?"

"I would like to think so." Marissa was thinking thru what she would say next, she did not want make things harder on her but she was not going to mislead her in anyway. "I married your Dad almost three years ago."

This caught her a little off guard, it explained why she was willing to go purchase clothes for her. "Your Cecil's mom then?"

"Yes, and I am yours also." Marissa replied.

Amber was going to say that, didn't know how to saw that or what to think. "I don't remember having a mom." she said.

Marissa fought back the tears she felt were trying to come. "I know." she said. "I would like to spend time with you whenever I can so that you can get to know me better if that is alright."

"I guess, the only person I spend much time with is Samantha."

"Yes, I was told you to have been good friends."

"Yea, it is kind of weird cause not that long ago she didn't like me now we spend a lot of time together. I have never had a friend her age, I mean I don't remember ever having a friend her age."

"You have a had a couple but you usually hung out with your brother, once you started at the O.S.S. it was usually only your brother or the other kids here that you were with."

"Yea, Samantha said I trained her about this place which is weird cause she knows more about it then me."

"You will learn some of it again, not all but some."

"Yea, I am sure that Carmen wouldn't let me back in the Spy Kids program."

"Your already learning, I didn't know you even knew what it was called."

"Samantha told me, she won't get in trouble will she?"

"I doubt it. It is good for her to help relearn stuff."

"I never thought about having my mom talk to me but now that I have, if I said I didn't want them to change me back to Rebecca would that make you mad?"

"Honestly, I didn't know that no one hadn't told you this, maybe it was overlooked but what they found in your tests here and at the hospital show that it would be really dangerous to try and alter your memories again, we have decided that even if we discover how it was done that we would not be putting you thru that again. I hope that doesn't upset you."

"Kind of, but I am kind of glad too, it sacred me to think about that. Your not upset that I won't be the way I was before?"

"A little, but I would prefer just to have you are then make it worse on you which it could if it was attempted again."

"Can you go get the clothes later, and stay here for a while so we can talk?" Amber asked.

"I would like that." Marissa answered.

* * *

Carmen watched the two of them on the monitor. Marissa had been right in asking to visit Amber. Things were going better then she had hoped. This had not only been good for the girl but for Marissa.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Something has come up." she said. "We need to talk."

"Is Cecil ok?"

"He's fine." she said as she picked Maria up and sat next to him. "They found Rebecca, she is being held at the hospital."

This surprised him, almost overwhelmed him. He suddenly had so many questions. "Is she ok?"

"She is physically fine."

"When can we go see her?" he interrupted.

"Their is more you need to know before then." she said. "She has been thru a lot and as a result their has been damage to her memory."

"How much damage?"

"She doesn't remember any of anything about her life or any of us." Marissa said.

"It's not permanent" he asked even thou he dreaded what the response would be."

She didn't know how to answer his question, their was no easy way for her to tell him, she decided to just get it out. "Honey, I don't know how to say this, but the damage appears to be permanent."

"Has anyone told her about us?" Wilbur asked.

"She has been told about us, I have seen her once and you need to prepare yourself she is not the same, she is very skeptical of others, the only person she appears to trust to any extent is Samantha."

"O.S.S. agent Samantha Gardner, she hasn't mentioned her in a long time."

"I know, somehow they have became friends now."

He did not know how to prepare himself to meet his own child when she didn't remember him and decided he would just play it by ear. "When can I see her?"

"I think we should talk to Cecil first. She has developed some attachment to him, even with her loss of memory. It would be best for both of them if he came with us when we went to see her.

"She doesn't remember anything at all about us?"

"No, this is going to be hard on her, harder then it will be for any of us. We are going to need to be strong for her and be patient with her. Let's go get Cecil and talk to him now, then we can go and see her." she said.

* * *

He sat there in the car worried in ways that no parent should ever be, he was about to meet his daughter for the first time from her perspective, something he never thought he would need to do. He remembered the day Cecil and her were born, her first steps, her first words and dozens of other memories, and when he finally was reunited with her she would not share any of those memories, not even her name. Marissa had told him that she now believed her name was Amber, and even thou she knew that she used to be Rebecca, it would be easier if they used the other name, at least for the time being. He wanted to know who was responsible for doing this to, but that could wait, helping his daughter thru this was his priority.

* * *

She paced nervously in her room, the nurse had told her that they would be arriving soon, she was feeling nervous, anxious, uneasy and excited. She wanted them to get their, she hated the waiting, time seemed to be moving slowly almost at a standstill to her. She didn't even see the nurse enter the room.

"You need to calm down a bit or your going to make yourself sick." Samantha said.

"Go see if their here yet." Amber replied.

"I just check less then five minutes ago, it is going to be ok. We don't want you to stress out again, especially right now. Why don't you sit on the bed.?"

"I don't want to sit on the bed, I want them to get here."

"You won't be able to see them if your unconsciousness. Come sit next to me."

She strode over to her bed showing irritation. "What is taking them so long?" she asked.

She sat down on the bed, it wasn't helping very much, time was still dragging. When another a nurse entered and informed her that they had arrived she thought her heart was going to leap out of her chest. It must have been apparent because the nurse that had just entered told her to breath slowly and they would be leaving to the room were she was to meet them.

"I will be outside." Samantha said as she started to stand.

"No, stay here with me." Amber blurted out quickly.

"You really need to calm down." the nurse said.

"Well tell them to hurry then." she retorted back. She knew Marissa and Cecil were going to be their and she wanted to see them, it was the other two however that were causing the majority of the range of emotions she was experiencing, especially her dad, just as had been the case with Marissa she did not remember having a father, she was not sure what it would be like, or what she would say to him and then their was her younger sister, she did not know how to behave towards her either. She was extremely nervous as Marissa led them into the room.

* * *

He focused on her as soon as he entered the room, he didn't mean to stare, he just didn't know how he should react to her. She was just as he remembered her, yet she was different, he could see the nervousness in her eyes. He watched as the nurse told her that she would be outside if she needed anything. Samantha was sitting at on a chair nest to the bed, he had seen met her before and still found it a surprise that the two girls had bonded. They never had anything really in common before that he had seen.

Cecil moved closer to the bed and stood next tot he chair were Samantha was sitting. He was even more uncomfortable now being around her now then he was before. "How you feeling?" he asked her.

"Not so bad." she said nervously.

"Amber, this is your dad." Marissa said.

She recognized him from the pictures Marissa had shown her. "Hello" she said to him.

"And this is your little sister." he answered. "I heard you were excited to meet her."

"Do you think they would let me hold her?" she whispered to Samantha.

"Ask your dad, he isn't going to bite." she said loud enough so everyone could hear.

"It's fine if you hold her." Wilbur said having heard her whisper to Samantha also as Marissa picked up Maria and carried her to Amber.

She looked at her as Marissa sat her in her lap. Maria stared at her for a moment and then refocused back on some of the wires coming from a nearby machine trying to get them.

"I don't think she likes me." Amber said

"It isn't that she doesn't like you." Wilbur said. "She recognizes you, if she didn't she would have watched you longer."

"I don't remember her." Amber said.

"It's alright if you don't, Amber." he said. "It is going to take time for you to get used to us again."

They spent the next couple of hours talking about a variety of things including the clothes Marissa had purchased for her and brought. When the time came for them to leave Marissa reassured her that at least one of them would come visit her for a while the next day. She watched as they left the room.

"You ok?" Samantha asked noticing tears in her eyes.

"I don't want them to leave."

"Don't worry, they will come back. I am going to call Carmen and she if she will let me stay the night here ok?"

Amber nodded, she was a little confused how she didn't want them to leave, two of them she had just met.

* * *

"How did it go?" Carmen asked as Marissa entered her office alone.

"Better then I thought it would. It seemed to have done some good for everyone, even as we were leaving. She seemed nervous when she first came in, by the time we had to leave she seemed sad that we were going which makes me feel bad we left her feeling that way, but good in knowing she didn't want us to leave."

Carmen nodded. "She like the clothes you brought.?"

"Off course she did she is a young girl, we all like new clothes at that age, I still do and I'm not her age anymore."

"I'm the same way. Samantha called after you left and asked if she could stay the night at the hospital, I know it is going to seem weird but your going to need to get used to those two being together I think." Carmen said.

"It is weird, wonder how Cecil is going to deal it if Amber starts spending more time with Samantha then him. How long until she can come home with us?" Marissa asked.

"Marissa you know it could be a while."

"I think it would be better if it was sooner then later, it would help her a lot to be with us as much as possible."

Carmen thought about what Marissa just said. "If I allow her to come home you will need to allow me have a couple of agents at your home for the time being."

"I understand, we want her home and even with the agents there it will be better for her, for all of us if she was there with us instead of the medical facility."

"I'll set things up and we will have her return home the day after tomorrow then." Carmen said.

* * *

Cecil came with her to visit Amber, he had wanted to be the one to tell her when he found out that she would be coming home. When he had Amber had looked at Marissa for confirmation, Marissa nodded at her. She was a little scared, did not know what it would be like or what to expect.

"Will I share a room with my sister?" she asked. She wanted to call her by her name but couldn't remember it. She had only seen her once, or only remembered seeing her once.

"Maria stays in your dad and my room." Marissa answered. "You have your own room, when you get home we can changed things around in it if you want."

"Were is your room?" she asked Cecil.

"Mine is across the hall from yours." he answered.

"Will I go to school?" Amber asked.

"For the first little while we want you to just rest and get comfortable. We may bring a teacher to the house at some point for you." Marissa answered.

"What time do I leave her tomorrow."

"I have to get that confirmed but it looks like it will be before noon."

"Samantha will be allowed to visit me won't she?" Amber asked.

"Of course, she is your friend." Marissa replied.

* * *

The rest of the day passed slowly after they left and when night came she tossed and turned unable to sleep until the nurse gave her something to help her sleep, when it finally took effect she quickly went to sleep and didn't wake up till after nine in the morning.

When the nurse came in and found that she had woken up she told her that Marissa was already their to help her pack up her belongings. She didn't have much and the things she did have were organized so it took almost no time to get it ready to go. One of the agent's that were going to be spending the day with them followed them out to the car, she watched as they drove away from the facility she had been at, not sure if she wanted to leave now, she was getting nervous again, she had experienced so many changes in a short period of time.

When they arrived out the house it was bigger then she had expected, Cecil had been watching for them and had ran out to meet them, he wanted to show her around the house. The biggest shock of the day came just after she entered the door.

"Oh, you have a dog." she said excitedly as she approached it to pet it and stopped.

"You didn't tell her about me?" Argonaut asked.

She jumped back. "The dog, it is talking." she said.

"Oh, yes." Marissa said. "I forgot to tell you about him. He is a robot."

He looked at him. "Does he bite?" she asked.

"Only if you bite me first."

"Argonaut, knock it off." Marissa said.

"I am just being funny."

"Come on let me show you your room." Cecil said ignoring Argonaut.

She followed him watching the dog until she was out of the room. She did not like the idea of a talking, robot dog.

"Does he have to stay in the house?" she asked Cecil.

"I suppose not." Cecil said. "He's harmless, except for his jokes. Just don't push any buttons or pull anything on him if he tells you to, actually don't do anything he tells you to do, it's safer that way."

He showed her to her room, she started looking around as he sat down in a chair in the room.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought you said your room was across the hall."

"It is." he said.

"Something wrong with your room?" she asked

He didn't understand. "No my room's ok."

"Why are you sitting in the chair in my room then?"

"Um, I usually sit in that chair when I am in here." he said. "I can leave if you want."

"Are you in here a lot?" she asked.

"Sometimes." he said.

She was not used to having a boy in her room, even if the boy was her brother, she wasn't used to having a brother. "Can you come back later?" she asked.

"Sure" he said leaving her room. She had never asked him to leave her room before. He decided he would just talk to her when she came out and not go back in her room.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Her supervisor had given her some dull research project into some technology stolen from Caltech several years ago. The case had gone cold, she didn't know why she had been told to look into it, she didn't question it however, she had been given boring research projects before.

She was reviewing a bio of a suspect in the disappearance of the technology when she realized that someone was standing behind her. "Your not authorized to be looking at this material." she said to the man standing behind her looking at her screen.

"I think in this case in will be allowed." he responded to her as he pointed to the photo on her display screen. "That is the person I am trying to determine the identity of."

* * *

Carmen sat at her desk. He had been so self assured, so arrogant that they would never determine his identity, and he would have been right had it not been for a random incorporation of two research projects.

She looked at the report sitting on her desk. She had thoroughly been it when she had learned of it's contents. He had been a researcher at the Behavioral and Neuroscience department of Caltech prior to his disappearance several years ago, she now had a piece of information that she had desperately wanted, knowing everything that he had recently done, some of it to someone she cared about.

* * *

"She wasn't trying to be rude Cecil." Wilbur said. "Things aren't going to be the same, even if we want them to be, she's not used to having a brother, she was probably uncomfortable having you in her room."

"It's not fair, I'm not used to her not wanting to be with me." Cecil replied.

"It's not that she doesn't want you to be with you, she mentioned you several times when she was found the second time." Marissa said. "She most likely just didn't expect you to sit down in her room, maybe even found it unusual. I think next time you should ask her if you can come into her room and sit in the chair if want to spend some time with her, she what she says. She might say yes."

"Get out.", all three of them looked down the hallway as they heard her voice echo loudly down the it.

"She must not be in the mood for anything to eat." Argonaut said as he entered the room with the rest of them.

"Argonaut leave her alone." Marissa said irritably.

"She's the one yelling throughout the house and I'm the one that gets reprimanded. That's fair." he replied.

"I told you to leave her alone. Why did you even go in there."

"Just trying to break the tension, thought she would be more amiable if I offered her a snack."

"Or, you were trying to be a nuisance."

"Well, yes theirs that also." Argonaut replied.

"I warned her about your jokes." Cecil said.

"Great, the whole household is turning against me. What about you Wilbur, what do you tell her about me?"

"Argonaut, just avoid talking to her, at least for now." Marissa said.

"She wants him to stay outside." Cecil said to Marissa

"Well that's great, I am in the dog house now."

"Argonaut, knock it off." Marissa replied.

* * *

He lay there with his head on the floor as they ate, he glanced up every so often for brief glances at her, every time he did so she was still watching him and he would look away. He had gotten reprimanded again by Marissa when he had just sat their starring at Amber. He was just curious, if you could call it that, him being a machine. He had developed certain patterns that resembled behaviors that determined how he interacted with the various members of the household. His programming knew that she was no longer Rebecca, his recognition systems showed that she was.

Out of the two systems his recognition one had a higher priority since it helped him recognize potential threats, in this case it was provided information to his other systems that she was not a threat, that she was Rebecca and as such he was following the patterns he had developed for interacting with Rebecca, expecting her to retaliate with a prank or some other mischief in response to him as she would have done before.

* * *

She watched him intently sitting their on the floor, not taking her yes from him as she ate. He kept looking at her every so often. Marissa had allowed him stay inside when she had asked her about him going outside while they ate. Part of him made her uncomfortable, especially because he kept looking at her, but it also made her curious.

He was a machine, not unlike those guards they used to command, the more she watched him the more she realized that he didn't act like them, if she didn't know better she would have thought he was expecting her to play with him and that he kept looking at her in anticipation she was going to.

She couldn't believe she was going to do this, she was actually feeling bad for him, he wasn't any more real the microwave or the refrigerator. She stood up from the table and walked over to him as the others watched from the table.

"I don't know what you like to do." she said to Argonaut. 'Do you want to come to my room and we can talk about something?"

This difference in her behavior was enough for his recognition systems to recognize the she had changed. She would have never asked that before. He created a new recognition pattern file for her classifying it as Amber and moved the one for Rebecca into the storage areas were the others were kept when he wasn't interacting with them.

"Let's go." he said as he stood up, then followed her as she proceeded down the hallway.

* * *

"You know how much I enjoy your visits." he said, the sound of sarcasm in his voice.

"You won't need to worry me disturbing you any longer, this visit was just to tell I would no longer doing these routine interrogations." Carmen said.

"Finally giving up on getting what you want from me have you, I can't say I blame you for finally coming to your senses and realizing you would never answer your questions."

"Oh no, you misunderstand me Mr. Mathews. I just wanted to let you know that I wouldn't be needing any more information from you to set your mind at ease." she replied.

He stared at her, going over this sudden turn of events, at first surprised, that didn't last long however as his emotions changed to annoyance then anger. His identity was no longer a secret, if she knew that then she may know more, a lot more.

"I take it you have found the girl." Mathews replied bitterly as she left the room.

* * *

Cecil peaked around her door frame into her room. Almost twenty minutes had passed since Argonaut had come out, he had been no help when Cecil had inquired of him what they had talked about and neither his Dad nor Marissa would let him join them. They said that he wasn't to interrupt them. "Can I come in?" he asked causing her to look up at him from the end of her bed.

"If you like. I have a question." she said. "The dog I asked him why he talked that way, with a accent. He gave me a bunch of different answers, one right after the other. He was very vague, I think he might have been teasing me, why would he be given a accent?"

He shrugged. "He's had it since the first time we heard him talking. Guess they had to make him sound like something."

"You can sit in that chair you were in before if you want." she continued. "You said we. I was with you the first time you heard him talk?"

"Yea someone had broken into the house, we were home alone and he was supposed to be taking care of us, that was the first time he said anything to us." he said as he sat down.

"Why did someone break into the house?"

"It's a long story. Ask Argonaut sometime, he likes to talk about things he has done."

"He did talk about a lot of stuff he has done, never mentioned anyone breaking into the house thou."

"He's probably waiting for the right moment to provide the best effect."

"Your all weird, talking dog that is waiting for the right moment to tell you something, someone attacking the house. What do the neighbors think?"

"The last ones didn't live their long, I don't know if they knew anything had happened and that is why or they just decided to move. Are we weird in a bad or good way?"

"It's not a bad way, it's just interesting. Can you tell me anything else that might happen so I'm not surprised?"

"Well there's a panic room under the living room." he answered.

"Really, can I see it?" she asked.

"We will have to ask Marissa. Last time we snuck down there she caught us and we got in trouble." he answered.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

It had been a simple matter to locate all assets he had including property he owned under various aliases, he had been working under the assumption that know one would ever determine his identity and he hadn't covered his tracks very well in the event someone did. Various agencies including the OSS were in the process of seizing those assets and eliminating any possible remaining threats.

Carmen pulled up in front of the Wilson home and saw Marissa standing out front holding Maria. She thought she would be waiting for her the moment she had been forced to leave the OSS. She decided it would be best if she handled this personally, any other options she had would only make the situation worse. Marissa could be stubborn at times and when she had asked her to bring Amber to the OSS headquarters she had refused once she learned why she wanted her brought there.

"Carmen, you mine as well leave." Marissa said before the was even halfway out of the car. "Their is no way I will allow what your proposing, she has been her less then two days."

"I think it may be a step in the right direction for her, it is a part of her past now, she will need to deal with it at some point and I believe that having her get it over with will help her move on with her life." Carmen said.

"No one has even talked to her about this, she has not mentioned even mentioned it, I believe it is because a part of her is scared about what he will do if he finds her."

"Marissa, I know you are trying to do what is best for her and this will be best for her, if she believes he is out their and might come for her it is all the more reason. She needs to feel safe, she needs to confront him and know that he is no longer a threat to her." Carmen said.

"I understand what your saying, what your proposing could be devastating for her, before she is permitted into the OSS we need to discuss this with her and let her make the decision."

"Let's go inside and talk with her then."

"I will be the one to tell her." Marissa said.

Carmen nodded.

* * *

"Me and Carmen have something we need to discuss with you." Marissa said said to Amber.

Amber sat on her bed, the door to her room had been closed to allow for privacy. She knew it had to be something important with how Marissa was acting.

"First I want you to know that all you have to do is tell us you don't want to talk about this and we will stop immediately." Marissa said, "The person who altered your memories has been captured by the OSS."

Her heart let with excitement out of extinct. She still had the unnatural memories of him being her father figure. "Can I see him?" she asked.

"That is why Carmen is here, if you want to, but you need to think about what he caused you to go thru before you decide, if you feel you will be able to handle it then I will support you, you are smart are a smart little girl and I think you will make the right decision." Marissa said.

Amber lowered her head looking at the ground. She knew it would be hard, she looked forward seeing him yet she didn't want to confront him after what she done when she left. She thought about the past couple of days. Their was something that she wanted to tell him. "I need to go see talk to him. He scares me thou. Promise me I can come back here afterward."

"Of course, Amber and you won't go thru this alone. Me and Carmen will be their with you. You will be safe."

"Can we bring Argonaut?" she asked.

"Of course he can come" Marissa said.

* * *

They walked down the corridor in the OSS. Mathews had been moved to a larger room, a dozen agents stationed either in the room or just outside, not for protection but to make it easier on Amber knowing they were there.

They hadn't told him why he had been brought into this room and except for a vague curiosity he didn't care.

He looked at Carmen as she entered the room. "I remember you saying that we weren't going be having any more meetings." he said.

"I didn't come to talk to you, someone else did thou." Carmen replied.

Before she had even finished saying it he knew why he had been brought here, he could see her standing in the doorway standing next to another women.

"I knew they had captured you, if they knew who I was they definitely would have been able to track you down." he said to Amber as she slowly entered the room.

"I am not a prisoner here." Amber answered.

This caught him bu surprise. "I am guessing you have told her who she really is." he said as he looked back at Carmen.

"Your the one that told me, when you said what you intended to do to Samantha when I captured her. When you talked about it I realized you had done the same thing to me." Amber replied.

He returned his focus back to her, his gaze coming in contact with her, anger filling at realizing his failure with her had been his doing. "Amber, what lies have they told you?" he asked foolishly, letting his emotions take control.

"The only lies have come from you. I never want to see you again." she then turned to leave the room, right before she left the room she turned and looked at him once more time. "And my name isn't Amber , it's Rebecca."

* * *

She stood their on the top of the hill looking over the city below, a light breeze blowing across her face. She could hear the sounds of other kids playing around her, spending time with their families, she turned and looked at her own sitting nearby on a blanket. Argonaut stood next to her as she watched them, she may not remember what is was like before but she would learn, form new memories, and she knew that they would be their to help her. Rebecca walked to where her family was seated on the blanket and joined them.

**THE END**


End file.
